H. P. Grice and J. L. Speranza

 J. L. Speranza – “Così bella implicatura, Grice!”

J. L. Speranza – “Così bella implicatura, Grice!” (c) J. L. Speranza. Questo documento è reso disponibile in accesso pubblico per lettura e consultazione. È tuttavia vietata la riproduzione, totale o parziale, nonché la diffusione, la trascrizione, l’adattamento o la pubblicazione in qualunque forma e con qualunque mezzo (cartaceo, digitale, elettronico o altro), senza previa autorizzazione dell’autore. Sono incoraggiate citazioni e riprese brevi a fini di studio, discussione e critica, purché accompagnate da chiara e corretta attribuzione all’autore e al progetto Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. L’autore è lieto che la parola “Griceiana” (après Fodor) circoli anche presso i più sospettosi—perfino, chissà, tra gli Anti‑Grice—purché circoli con nome, fonte e buona educazione.

 

This study is not “about” Grice so much as an act of learned ventriloquism: a sustained feat of conversational scholarship in which J. L. Speranza makes Grice speak again—sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, often in that third register the project loves best, Latinised intimacy (Vadum Boum included). It is scholarship with the pulse of theatre: quoting, parodying, reconstructing, and then—at the last moment—doing the one thing Grice prized above system, a well-timed inplicatura. The range is unapologetically wide (Bononia and the Reno, the Sorbonne and the Seine, Vadum Boum and the confluence of Isis and Cherwell), but the method is its real charm: convivial, exacting, and funny in more than one key—English humour meeting Italian humour not as translation but as cousinship. The enterprise’s originality lies in its governing conceit: that Grice’s “theory of conversation” is best recovered not by embalming it into a diagram, but by letting it live—less a ghost-in-the-machine than a voice-in-the-room: disputing, teaching, teasing, correcting, and (always) crossing from what is said to what is meant. If you want a piece of work that makes rationality feel less like a schema and more like a civilisation—running, with classical stubbornness, from AETERNA ROMA through Bononia to that marshy utilitarian ford where oxen and undergraduates alike learn to cross—this is it. J. L. Speranza is the founder, together with A. M. Ghersi, of Il gruppo di gioco di H. P. Grice: a “play group” whose name has been hunted, re-hunted, and never quite domesticated—since “gruppo di gioco” never fully satisfies as a rendering of Grice’s plagroup (which certain heretics would have as Lady Ann Strawson’s invention). This study irradiates from the group’s verbali: minutes that keep multiplying, not praeter necessitatem but by the very logic of convivial inquiry, as the circle expands. From those records, the project follows Grice’s own method—treating the illustrious dead as if they were great and living—while keeping a straight face only long enough to smuggle in the oxen, the ford, and the old academic joke that one crosses into learning by crossing water. Bononia to Sorbonne to Vadum Boum: the route is classical, the tone is playful, and the implicatures do most of the heavy lifting.

 

These pages by Speranza do not so much interpret Grice as put him back into circulation. It is scholarship by way of conversazione: exacting without solemnity, erudite without ceremonial stiffness, and comic without slackness. Speranza’s great trick is to treat “implicature” not as a laboratory instrument but as a civil art—the craft by which intelligence keeps its manners. Hence the method: not a diagram, not a monument, but a running talk, full of perfectly timed feints, staged exchanges, and the occasional Latin password that functions less as ornament than as proof of membership.What emerges is not commentary but a scene: conversation as the natural habitat of reason, where what is said matters chiefly for what is responsibly left unsaid. The prose moves with unusual ease across registers—Oxford English, Italian philosophical cadence, and a deliberately familiar Latin—because in this project languages are working tools, not decorative flags. Grice is not systematized here; he is frequented. The result is a Grice who feels alive, mobile, and unexpectedly European: moving (with the book’s own topographical wit) from Roma to Bononia to Sorbona to Vadum Boum, as if the history of philosophy were best tracked not by monuments but by crossings. The scale is part of the argument. By refusing the modern division of labour—classicist here, philosopher there—Speranza writes in the older, unembarrassed style in which philology, ethics, institutional history, and the small comic discipline of talk belong to one continuous education. Even the mock imprints and private “circulations” do not dilute the seriousness; they are the seriousness, in Grice’s key: a reminder that philosophy is a practice of company, not merely a warehouse of results. If Grice taught that rationality shows its character in how we speak, this work demonstrates the lesson at scale—serious because it knows how to be light, and light because it takes conversation seriously as a shared rational practice. A rare service, and rarer still in this tone: reason is not only demonstrated; it is exercised, together. Part II begins without an “introduction” because, by then, the reader has already been trained by Part I to hear what is going on. The verbali therefore start where conversation starts: with a name, a remark, an Italian utterance in quotation marks, and then the exchange itself. I do not title the individual entries. Chapter-headers and subsection labels belong to editors, not to interlocutors; they are not things a philosopher says. If this sometimes feels abrupt, that is part of the point: the book prefers the immediacy of talk to the bureaucratic comfort of signage. The order (alphabetical) is merely a way of keeping the minutes findable; it is not a claim about philosophical hierarchy, and it is not meant to intrude between the voice and what it manages—often by leaving things unsaid. P. J. W., Griceiana (Hilary Term Issue).

 

Speranza has pulled off the unclubabbly clubbable: he gives Grice not merely a circle, but a history. What once took shape in the intimacy of the Play Group now opens outward, acquiring depth, accent, and ancestry. Under Speranza’s guidance, Grice is heard conversing not only with the denizens of the Boum Vadum—Oxford at the moment the oxen pass from Town into Gown—but with Europe entire: in the Sorbonne’s Gallic cadences, in the Italian of Bononia, and finally along the many roads that lead to Rome. Rome here is not paraded as the cradle of civilisation (Athens keeps that honor), but as the cradle of Western civilisation—“a very good idea,” as Gandhi once put it. The result is a Grice who moves with ease among languages and traditions, engaging the intricacies, the entanglements, and indeed the implicaturae—Sidonius’s and his own—that shaped not only a theory, but a philosophical soul. From Notes from the Margins of Serious Books, T.R.S.

 

The diversions are .. what is called a conversazione, full of I cannot tell what.  GRAY. William Mason, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. Gray, Section II. York: A. Ward, 1775. For he might have been a Russian, a French or Turk, or Prussian, or perhaps Italian, but in spite of all temptatiosn to belong to other nations he remains an Englishman. Pinafore. What is the good of a book without pictures or conversations? Arriving at Corpus for my first Trinity, I found Vadus Boum in an illuminated margin – a Latinisation of our surroundings far more exquisite than its heavy, bovine ancestry. To speak plainly is a vice I have managed to avoid; naming the city is a mere cartographic chore, while invoking it through a mediæval glossary is a sacrament of initiation into the Lit. Hum. circle. Such delightful pedantry, found in the fringes of a syllabus, sparked a mirth that has never left me – proving that one is the only truly educated when one can make a geographical fact look like a classical epiphany. H. P. Grice.

PART I: SECTION I: GRICE: TORNA A BALONEY Setting the conversational scene: Bologna, Sorbonne, Vadum Boum..From the pages of an imagined diary—Grice’s earliest musings as a young scholar at Corpus—I trace the ancient thread binding Europe’s foremost centers of learning, each cradled by its own river, each shaped by the subtle flux of water and thought. In Bononia, the Faculty of Arts, later known as Philosophia, rose beside the gentle flow of the Reno, whose waters carry the memory of medieval disputations and echo the voices of scholars through arcaded porticos. The Reno, less famous than the rivers that grace other seats of learning, nonetheless deserves praise for its quiet persistence: its banks, lined with chestnut and willow, offered respite and inspiration to those who first navigated the grammar and logic of scholastic inquiry. By contrast, Paris’s Sorbonne stands sentinel to the Seine, a river as much a symbol of intellectual ferment as of metropolitan grandeur, its currents swirling past the Chancellerie and the cloisters, bearing the weight of centuries of philosophical disputations and revolutionary tumult. At Vadum Boum—the place never named, but ever present—a pair of rivers, Isis and Cherwell, converge in tranquil murmurs, their confluence a mirror to the entwined traditions of dialectic and dialogue. Through these waterways, continuity is sustained: the Reno’s modest song, the Seine’s ceaseless tide, and the Isis and Cherwell’s reflective course mark the passage of academic generations, linking Bononia’s original Faculty of Arts to the living conversation that persists at Vadum Boum. Thus, in these rivers, we find not merely boundaries, but the symbolic lifeblood of philosophical tradition itself. The Reno and Roman Bononia The establishment of Bononia—now Bologna—by the Romans is a tale that transcends the mere displacement of ancient, so-called barbarian inhabitants. Rather than dwelling upon the legacy of those who came before, Roman Bononia found its identity in the profound sanctity and learning associated with its waters, particularly the Reno. The Romans, famed for their respect for natural phenomena, recognised in the Reno a site not just for sustenance, but for communion with the sacred and the erudite. The waters coursing through Bononia thus became the lifeblood of scholarship, carrying forward an intellectual tradition that persists to this day. Sacred Waters and Erudition From its earliest days, Bononia’s riverbanks were more than geographical features—they served as sanctuaries for reflection, learning, and ritual. The Reno was celebrated not merely as a source of life, but as a vessel for wisdom, its currents echoing the rhythm of scholarly pursuit. Roman engineers and settlers constructed their city with an eye towards the harmonious integration of civic and spiritual life, understanding that the waters would sustain both body and mind. The university which would arise centuries later inherited this reverence, its scholars ever mindful of the sacredness imbued in the city's aqueous foundations. Monsieur Sorbonne and the Reverence for the Seine A parallel may be drawn to the intellectual genesis of Paris, where Monsieur Sorbonne established his collegiate institution by the Seine. Here, too, the river was not only a physical presence but a spiritual and scholarly force. The Seine’s waters, winding through the heart of Paris, were revered for their proximity to sites of learning and devotion, much as the Reno was in Bononia. The founding of the Sorbonne signified an alliance between sacred nature and scholarly ambition, its scholars gazing upon the Seine as both muse and mentor in their academic journey. Foundation of Vadum Boum (1218) and River Symbolism Oxford, or Vadum Boum, founded in the early thirteenth century and often referenced in relation to the year 1218, stands amidst the Isis and Cherwell rivers. Echoing Bononia’s reverence for the Reno and Sorbonne’s for the Seine, the waters of Oxford were woven into the city’s scholarly fabric. The act of crossing these rivers became emblematic of the university’s pursuit of knowledge, the rivers themselves serving as boundaries between the familiar and the unknown, the mundane and the profound. The foundation of Vadum Boum is thus inseparable from the symbolic and literal presence of its waters, which shaped the rhythms of academic life and the aspirations of its denizens. Oxen, Pupils, and the Journey to Knowledge The imagery of oxen traversing the Isis and Cherwell is more than a rustic detail; it reflects the steadfastness of the typical pupil at Oxford, or Vadum Boum. These beasts, reliable in their journey to the riverbank, mirror the determination of scholars who approach the waters of learning with resolve. Yet, the adage holds true—one may lead a pupil to water, but cannot compel them to drink. The rivers at Oxford, as at the Seine and Reno, may beckon with promises of wisdom, but the act of learning remains a personal endeavour. The rivers thus stand as silent witnesses to both the possibility and the limits of education, their sacredness inviting, but never forcing, intellectual engagement. Waters as Sites of Learning The rivers of Bononia, Paris, and Oxford are more than geographic markers—they are central participants in the traditions of learning and reverence that shaped their respective universities. The Romans, Monsieur Sorbonne, and the founders of Vadum Boum all understood the symbolic and spiritual significance of their waters, recognising them as sites where erudition takes root. Whether it is the Reno, the Seine, or the Isis and Cherwell, these rivers serve as enduring reminders that, while the journey to knowledge may be guided, its fulfilment ultimately depends upon the scholar’s own willingness to drink from the wellspring of wisdom. Suppose someone would ask – as someone would – you to provide an ‘abstract’ for this. Grice never liked the term ‘abstract.’ Not because it is too abstract, but because it is not abstract enough. In the many abstracts that I have submitted for my publications – and for whose Grice never submitted one – I always found myself finding the page too short! In any case, an abstract would read as something as per the following pessage. In this study, J. L. Speranza engages with his all-time mentor, the Oxford English philosopher H. P. Grice. Speranza has been fascinated by only TWO features of Grice’s philosophy: conversation and reason, which Speranza combines as ‘conversational reason’. To the pedants, and rightly so, who would object to ‘conversational’ as an apt epithet to ‘reason,’ Grice would have an answer: ‘the hoot.’ It is true that ‘reason’ does not quite get qualified by ‘conversational’ – but then, it doesn’t get qualified by ‘pure’ either. At Oxford, ‘pure alcohol’ belongs only to the lowest strata of the social spectrum. The emphasis on conversation is biblical, as when Adam conversed with his spare rib – to ‘converse’ involves Eve – which Italian philosophers are always too ready as call ‘il intersoggetivo.’ Italian still keeps some features of the old Latin neutre. So what they mean is INTER-SUBJECTIVVM. Grice never dealt with it. He deals profusely with the SUBJECTIVVM and how the SUBJECTIVVM is never good enough to become the OBJECTIVVM unless it’s through Grice’s last and final public appearance: the third Carus Lecture, which transubstantiated Grice from a human to the person that he still is. So by qualifying things as ‘conversational,’ when in a free spirit mood – conversational implicature, conversational maxim, conversational category, conversational move, conversational rule, conversational game, conversation – he knew what he was talking about. He allowed that Hyslop might have been right when – in the pages of “Analysis” no less – Hyslop challenged Grice with just existing “without an audience.” Grice responded, but the audience was gone! I hope you enjoy the notes! What further distinguishes Speranza’s Grice is the insistence that he be approached not only as a theorist but as a practiced man of form: cricket and chess, bridge and piano, philosophy as one discipline among others, governed by timing, rules, improvisation, and cultivated nerve. Speranza understands—because he shares it—that this was not ornament but method. Grice’s talk of games was never metaphorical padding: it came from a life lived between clubs, messes, common rooms, and instruments, where the active and the speculative were never cleanly divided. That background gives Speranza’s interlocutors their tonal authority. They speak from within a Literae Humaniores inheritance that assumes bodily skill and historical imagination as prerequisites of intelligence. The soldierly and naval contrast—Speranza from the army, Grice from the navy—is not biographical trivia but temperamental calibration: manoeuvre, strategy, patience, and disciplined risk recur not only in anecdotes but in philosophical stance. The Roman obsession is telling here. Roma is not merely cited; it functions as a lived horizon—aeterna Roma not as slogan but as continuity. Italians who thought in Latin, and later in Italian, appear not as linguistic curiosities but as Griceian figures avant la lettre, already practised in the civil art of implication. In Speranza’s hands Grice’s Europe coheres as a single conversational field, where sport, service, language, and philosophy remain mutually intelligible activities, governed by the same demands of honour, measure, and wit.

— A. C. E., Marginalia Humanitatis

From the pages of Griceiana, we read: “Speranza has made his window very clear. His is a comparative approach, grounded in extensive explorations of the marshy Boum Vadum—as he likes to call Oxford—and now consciously turning back, or torna a Baloney, to Bononia, as he prefers to name it. The limitation of this window is deliberate and entirely reasonable. Speranza excludes Bononia-related philosophers whose views would not have been available in print by 1967, Grice’s final year at Oxford. The rationale is transparent. Any comparative account of Boum Vadum and Bononia, insofar as it bears on matters Griceian, must focus on a determinate stretch of time: the 1930s, which saw Grice welcomed to Oxford and appointed tutorial fellow at St John’s; the 1940s, when he also assumed the role of university lecturer; the 1950s; and the 1960s up to his departure in 1967. This temporal breadth gives Speranza ample scope for the comparisons he wants to draw. If conversational dissociations emerge between the two traditions, they are shown to be deliberate—cases in which neither side was really listening to the other. This, in turn, allows Speranza to concentrate on what he calls the ‘palaeo-Griceians’: figures such as Abba, and others of that generation, whose work forms the most pertinent background to a genuinely Griceian comparison.” What Speranza has achieved here is something rarer than commentary and more useful than exegesis: he has produced, in effect, a modern conversation book of the old English sort, the kind an Edwardian country gentleman might once have picked up at Hatchards before setting off for London or the Continent, not to memorise phrases but to acquire a feel for how educated talk is actually conducted among civilised minds. Like those manuals—often pompously titled in Italian or French to flatter the reader into complicity—Speranza’s work does not instruct by rules but by example, staging conversations in which one learns, almost unawares, how to listen, how to respond, how to let implication do the work of argument. His imaginative ventriloquism, making Grice converse with Italian philosophers who would never brave the damp of Vadum Boum, supplies precisely the kind of social and intellectual orientation such a traveller needs: not a map, but a knack; not doctrine, but tone. The result is a civil manual of reason in motion, teaching by convivial practice how philosophical intelligence lives in dialogue, timing, and the arts of saying less than one means—an education in manners of mind worthy of any grand tour, whether taken once in a lifetime or, like Sir Cecil Vyse’s, every autumn. —P.J.W., Griceiana

Etc etc etc

Goodbye, St. John’s Dorm  St John’s. Day out of duty, I get married.  One does not, on such a day, expect to feel any affection for a staircase. Yet I found myself making a small pilgrimage back to my old set in College, not out of sentimentality in the usual lachrymose sense, but because it seemed the decent thing to do: to go and look once more at the room in which I had slept as if sleeping were an academic exercise, to take stock of the place that had, in its quiet way, housed an unreasonable amount of thinking. The room itself had always struck me as a kind of disciplined compromise between comfort and penitence. Stone in the bones of it; wood in the furniture; and a persistent sense that whatever warmth one enjoyed had to be actively produced—by coal, by kettle, by the improbable optimism of a lamp. The bed was narrow, as beds in colleges are narrow: not so much a bed as a reminder that one is not meant to luxuriate. It had been pushed against the wall, and it had that quality of being both temporary and permanent, like a camp one has inhabited for years. A chair that squeaked when you leaned back, as if it objected to reflection. A table scarred by cups and books and the occasional desperate jab of a pen. And the window—there is always a window in these matters, because Oxford never lets you forget that you are indoors on purpose. Mine looked out on a slice of court, sky above it, and the sort of tree that performs its seasons with a decorum one almost comes to resent. I stood there and did not do anything melodramatic. I did not pat the bed, or salute the wardrobe, or talk to the walls. Still, I found that the room was full—full, not of ghosts, but of familiar positions: where the books had been stacked when I was pretending to be tidy; where I used to drop my gown; where I would sit, absurdly late, rehearsing a line of argument I ought to have left alone. And then, uninvited, the tutorial years came back: those long afternoons and evenings in which one is meant to “teach” but in fact learns how another mind moves. I can see Flew, eager and combative, turning every question into an occasion for a thesis, as if a tutorial were a platform and not a conversation. A bright boy, with a taste for the quick knock-out; one had to slow him down, not to tame him, but to make him hear the difference between winning a point and understanding it. Strawson, by contrast, already had that air of being quietly certain that he would end up disagreeing with you, but that the disagreement would be civilized. He had the habit of taking an example—some harmless phrase, some bit of ordinary English—and worrying it into a metaphysical claim with the calm of a man folding a napkin. With him, one had always to watch for the moment when the ordinary slid into the portentous, not because it was illegitimate, but because it was so easy. I remembered the peculiar rhythm of those days: sleeping in the middle of them, as if I were on night duty with the Navy still in my bones; waking, thinking I was late, and discovering it was only time itself being slow; then rising to do what Oxford requires—put on a tie, say something definite, and pretend that the definiteness is not, nine times out of ten, a polite fiction. In those rooms one learns that the life of the mind depends on small material things: the angle of a chair, the draught from a window, the fact that the bed is too short for one’s legs. Even a philosopher, however incorporeal his topic, is not exempt from being a body. And now I was to leave it. Not in disgrace, not in triumph, but because the terms of the arrangement had changed. I had married; I was no longer to be a resident as if I were still a student of my own habits. The oddity is that one feels, at that moment, both relieved and oddly displaced. The college room has never been “home,” and yet it has been the nearest thing to it. One has lived with parents, then boarded, then lodged, then occupied, but always under someone else’s roof, someone else’s rules, someone else’s assumptions about what sort of person one is meant to be. The new arrangement, though, is nice. We are moving to Belsyre. It sounded, when first said, like a place one ought to have read about rather than lived in. A name with too much air in it. But it would be ours—at least, ours in the only sense Oxford ever really permits: ours by permission, ours by connection, ours because the College owns the ground and parcels out its favours as if they were simply sensible allocations. I took one last look at the window, at the bed, at the stubborn table, and thought: well, that’s that. There are worse endings than leaving a room because you’ve acquired a wife. And if one must change one’s abode, it is as well to do it not by force but by a kind of domestic logic. Welcome, North Oxford  The War is over. Before St John’s, I get to settle at Belsyre. Welcome, North Oxford.  I had known Oxford for years, of course, but mostly in the way one knows a theatre from backstage: quads, passages, staircases, and rooms that belong to somebody else. North Oxford was different. It had streets that behaved like streets, houses that behaved like houses, and a sense that the University, for once, was not the whole town but merely one presence among others. The architecture pleased me at once: not grand in the college manner, not ecclesiastical, but confident—Victorian in that peculiar way: solid, a little self-satisfied, and faintly theatrical without admitting it. Belsyre itself felt like a small world arranged with an eye to both privacy and proximity. A court, properly speaking: an enclosed shape that keeps the noise out and the sense of belonging in. There is a rhythm to a court that one doesn’t get in a mere row of houses. You come in, you turn, you find your corner, and suddenly you are inside something. The effect is oddly collegiate, though without the medieval piety. One could call it domestic monasticism, if one were feeling mischievous. We were given a corner, and the corner had what matters most in Oxford: a good window. You can forgive many faults in a room if it gives you light and a view. I had plans immediately—of course one does. There would be space for the piano; and the piano, if it has space, makes the room behave differently. It is not merely an instrument; it is furniture with intentions. It insists that the room is a place where something may be done that is not reading. North Oxford is not, as people sometimes say, “quite a contrast” with Birmingham; not in the crude sense. Birmingham has its own kinds of dignity. But North Oxford is a world of its own, and it is a world designed for a particular sort of inhabitant: the don with a family, the professional mind with a domestic perimeter. One is not merely tolerated there; one is expected. It is not “Oxford proper,” not the medieval huddle where everything seems to have been built against rain and enemies, but a later extension—more spacious, more regular, as if the city had exhaled and decided to become comfortable. And then there is the walk. I am tall, and I have always looked as if I am in a hurry even when I am not. From Belsyre to St John’s is a matter of ten minutes if one does not dawdle, and I seldom dawdle. Woodstock Road running down and becoming St Giles, that long approach with its steady perspective, its sense of being both a route and a small daily ritual. Over the decades, that walk would become a kind of metronome. You set out. You arrive. You return. The body learns it; the mind uses it. One thinks better in motion than one cares to admit. On the way back, the Lamb and Flag is conveniently placed for what one might call a recalibration. A pint is not, strictly speaking, a philosophical instrument, but it is astonishing what a little noise, a little warmth, and a little human talk can do to one’s sense of proportion. The Colleges encourage you to imagine that every question is ultimate; the pub reminds you that most questions are survivable. As for Belsyre itself, it had an atmosphere that suited me. Not merely “pleasant,” which is too vague, but composed. One could feel that it had been built with a purpose: to accommodate dons, to keep them near enough to the Colleges to be useful, but far enough away to let them pretend to have private lives. The ground had belonged to St John’s, as so much in Oxford does when you follow the ownership far enough back. That too is part of the point: one’s house is not merely a house; it is a continuation of one’s collegiate attachment, translated into bricks and leases. One lives, in effect, in one’s connection. We were, in time, to become a family in the ordinary sense. The children—born in London, but soon Oxford children in their habits—played in the North Oxford streets and gardens as if that were the natural fate of childhood. There was school, Oxford High School, the routines and friendships that make a place real. One becomes, without noticing it, the “family type,” which at Oxford is a kind of category: the don who goes home rather than lingering in College, the man who has to think about meals and bedtime as well as seminars. For someone who had spent so long living under other people’s roofs—parents, then schools, then colleges—it was, in its way, a novelty: having one’s place, having an abode that was not merely assigned but inhabited. It also taught one something, if one was paying attention, about the way philosophers arrange their lives. It is a kind of ordinary-language lesson in practice: the way private life gets institutionalised, turned into a pattern, made into something that looks inevitable. Austin, for instance, preferred the quiet of the countryside, the garden, the distance. That was his style: remote, controlled, a world curated to his own tempo. Mine was more urban. Not London-urban, of course, but Oxford-urban: close enough to walk to College, close enough to be in the stream, close enough to have the city’s small conveniences without having to surrender to it. In that sense, Belsyre was not just an address; it was the first real settling. After years of rooms—some beloved, some merely endured—this was the first abode that belonged, in the only sense that matters, to my married life. And so, in 1945, with the War finished and the city resuming its peculiar peacetime seriousness, I found myself doing something I had not quite done before: living, not merely lodging; inhabiting, not merely occupying; and discovering that a ten-minute walk, repeated enough times, can become part of one’s philosophy without ever once appearing in a paper. On the well-documented grandeur (St John’s and the rest) It is one of Oxford’s mildest vices that she makes it so easy for her inhabitants to become architectural snobs. Yet one can hardly be blamed. The grand architecture of St John’s is not merely “there”; it has been described, measured, argued over, and set into print until the place itself begins to feel like an illustration in a book that one happens to be living inside. One is as documented, in one’s earlier abodes, as one is lodged: Merton, Corpus, Clifton, even that Harborne “Sandown” on Lordswood Road, with its Birmingham confidence and its domestic piano, are all the sorts of places that invite the antiquarian to take notes, and sometimes do. Oxford, however, is peculiarly spoiled for this sort of documentation. It possesses, as it were, a second skin of guidebooks. When one says “the Oxford Schools” one is really gesturing to a whole literature which teaches you to see the place in a particular way: to treat stone as if it were grammar, and a quad as if it were an argument. One could, with a little decency, offer a small shelf of the obvious. For the city and its major buildings, the standard reference in my younger days was surely Pevsner’s Oxfordshire volume, which taught an entire generation how to look, and how to sound as if they had always known what they were looking at. And for Oxford as a built thing, in photographs rather than judgments, Osbert Lancaster’s affectionate picture of the place was a kind of antidote to mere piety. If one wanted the older, documentary voice, one went to the Victoria County History, where the stones are allowed to speak as documents. And if one wanted Oxford’s own account of itself, one took up the old history by Salter, which has that municipal thoroughness that the University always pretends not to need. Select bibliography (all comfortably pre-1967; most of it “classic” rather than fashionable) Nikolaus Pevsner, Oxfordshire (The Buildings of England), Penguin Books, 1954.  Osbert Lancaster, Homes Sweet Homes, John Murray, 1939. (A very English guide to seeing architecture without genuflecting.) H. E. Salter, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1936. Victoria County History: Oxfordshire, various volumes (early 20th century onwards). [books.google.com] Editorial 2: Belsyre Court revisited (a St John’s project, modern Oxford’s first “big block of flats”) If St John’s itself is over-described, Belsyre is under-remembered—though it is no less a St John’s gesture. One learns, living in Oxford, that the Colleges are not merely places of learning; they are landlords with long memories. North Oxford, in particular, has St John’s in its soil, and Belsyre Court belongs to that estate logic: a College development, practical and slightly ambitious, aimed at housing and income, but executed with enough architectural self-respect to make the thing more than a utilitarian box. Belsyre Court stands on Woodstock Road, at the corner by Observatory Street, and it announces itself not by medieval stone but by a more modern confidence: brick, bulk, and a deliberate front. It is not “Victorian” in date, strictly speaking, but it speaks in a late-echo of Victorian manners: a Jacobethan dress, Tudor arches where you might expect plain lintels, and a grandly performative colonnade to the shops along Woodstock Road. It was planned as mixed use—flats above, commerce below—and the court form is real enough: a U-shaped block with a courtyard opening off Observatory Street, giving that enclosed, inward-facing Oxford comfort while still presenting a public face to the main road. [en.wikipedia.org], [britishlis...ings.co.uk] The dates matter, because they make the building a small signal of Oxford changing its habits. The scheme was selected in 1932; the final design (after an earlier proposal was rejected) was by Ernest R. Barrow; and the building went up in 1936. It has four storeys, with an attic and a semi-basement; and, in its own local mythology, it is sometimes described as Oxford’s first “large block of flats.” [en.wikipedia.org], [britishlis...ings.co.uk] One could still call it, without pretence, “a flat at the Belsyre.” That is exactly the point: it is Oxford learning to speak in a new domestic register. Not everybody had a right to it; it belonged to the College’s dispensation, not to the open market. And because it was, in effect, a shared building rather than a private house, one can imagine certain domestic arts needing to acquire manners. A piano, for instance, is not abolished by communal living, but it is educated by it; walls are excellent tutors. As for lifts: one does not expect lifts in the Oxford of the thirties as one expects staircases; but the building has indeed been a candidate for later practical updates, and it is easy enough to suppose that modern passenger lifts arrived later as the building’s “mansion block” life continued. [group-savvy.co.uk] If you want a convenient, factual pointer on Belsyre itself, the listing description is unusually rich (materials, plan, façade, shopfronts, balconies), and it confirms the essential points: the 1936 date, Barrow as architect, the U-plan with courtyard, the four storeys plus attic and semi-basement, and the Woodstock Road colonnade over the shop parade. [britishlis...ings.co.uk], [historicen...and.org.uk] Select bibliography for Belsyre Court and North Oxford context (not all pre-1967, but the best “about Belsyre” is later) Peter Howard and Helena Webster, Oxford: An Architectural Guide, Ellipsis London, 1999 (entry on Belsyre Court).  Ann Spokes Symonds, The Changing Faces of North Oxford, Vol. Two, Robert Boyd Publications, 1998.  Historic England listing entry for Belsyre Court (technical description of plan, materials, elevations).  British Listed Buildings: Belsyre Court (mirrors listing text). [en.wikipedia.org] [historicen...and.org.uk] [britishlis...ings.co.uk] Donald Russell at the Belsyre (a neighbour in the court, and a classical reminder) One more advantage of that court-life, which an Oxford man learns to treat as accidental until it becomes routine, was the neighbourliness of minds. In the late forties a new Fellow arrived at St John’s who, if one did not know him, one might have mistaken for a man designed to disprove the post-war theory that youth must be noisy. Donald Russell, a classicist, precise in speech, economical in manner, and (as the phrase goes) “a prominent” one. He lived in the same Court at Belsyre, in a flat of his own, and for years the building had the agreeable effect of making St John’s feel slightly enlarged—extended, as it were, into Woodstock Road. People in Oxford talk about Colleges “owning” North Oxford; Belsyre was one of the few places where one felt the ownership translated into actual proximity: you might meet your colleague not only in Hall or High Table, but on a stair or in the little yard, with a key in your hand and a parcel under your arm. It was easy, then, to imagine a small exchange between us as we walked back from College, not because our subjects were identical (they were not), but because both of us had been shaped by the same educational machinery: Literae Humaniores, that Oxford contrivance by which you learn Greek and Latin for years and then are told, at the end, that you are also a philosopher. Russell: You philosophers are always escaping into “language” as if it were a neutral territory. Grice: It is neutral only in the sense that the enemy is everywhere. Besides, I do not escape into it; I return to it. One cannot quarrel with metaphysics all day without needing a well-lit room in which to recover one’s wits. Russell: Still, it is a curious development. One comes up to Oxford to do Classics, and then finds oneself required to have opinions about mind, knowledge, and the rest. Grice: Oxford always does this. It gives you a scholarship in something respectable—Classics, say—then it smuggles philosophy in through the back gate and calls it “Greats.” It made me. I came because I had a Classics scholarship. Clifton prepared classicists; it did not, as far as I recall, prepare “philosophers.” A philosophy scholarship would have sounded—what?—positively revolutionary, if not plain anarchic. Russell (a little ruefully): Yes. One can feel guilty for admitting it, but it is true. “Scholarship in Philosophy” would have sounded like a contradiction in terms. As if the point of philosophy were to be properly funded. Grice: Or properly supervised. But Classics—Classics you may supervise. You may insist on a text, a line, a construction, a word. It teaches one a certain kind of seriousness. Even when one ends up talking about “meaning,” one still has the old habit of asking what the Greek is doing, what the Latin is doing—what the sentence is doing, rather than what one feels about it. Russell: And it teaches restraint. One cannot bully a text indefinitely; it resists. Grice: Quite. Whereas an undergraduate may be bullied for years and still show up for tutorials. By this point we would have reached the Court and its familiar arrangement: the entrance off Woodstock Road, the inward turn, the quiet that arrives as soon as the street noise is shut out. I would have thought, not without amusement, that Oxford had discovered a modern way of reproducing the cloister without pretending to be medieval about it: a court for dons, flats rather than staircases, privacy achieved by adjacency. A strange compromise, but a workable one. And if one had a piano, one learned—without resentment—that one also had neighbours. (Backing you can cite, if you want it later) Donald Russell is documented as a long-time Fellow of St John’s College and as living at Belsyre Court; one tribute explicitly mentions collaborators “pilgrimag[ing] … to his flat at Belsyre Court.”  St John’s College has a memorial page for Donald Russell and related materials. [edizionica...i.unive.it] [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [sjc.ox.ac.uk] A small “Russell shelf” (for the nice bibliographic touch) If you want to drop in a couple of titles as “Russell’s books,” here are safe, well-known ones (with publication details you can refine later to match your house style): D. A. Russell, Longinus: On the Sublime (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964).  D. A. Russell, Plutarch (Duckworth, London, 1972).  D. A. Russell and M. Winterbottom, Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in New Translations (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972). [sjc.ox.ac.uk] If you tell me roughly what year you want the “walk-back” dialogue set (late 1940s vs early 1950s), I can tune the talk so it sounds like two recently demobbed Oxford men (quietly war-shaped) rather than two settled senior figures—without changing your existing editorial text. From Sandown to Belsyre: it is the sort of trajectory that makes one distrust one’s own biography. Sandown—my mother’s Birmingham baptism into the mild snobberies of naming: an inland villa borrowing its sea-air from the Isle of Wight, as if a syllable could do the work of a holiday. Sandown says: we may be in Harborne, but we are thinking seaward. Then Oxford, and after the wedding—after the polite expulsion from the college room that had been “home” only by academic licence—the address becomes Belsyre. One hears it and immediately begins doing what Oxford trains you to do: not to ask what it means, but to ask what it is trying to make you think it means. “Bel air” suggests itself, absurdly—French drifting into an English mouth as if North Oxford had been zoned by Versailles. But Oxford does not do French unless it can do it as a joke, and if it is a joke it is usually on the hearer. So one suspects an English archaism: belsire—a “fair sire,” a “grandfather,” an ancestor. A word that sounds like genealogy with its hat on. [wehd.com], [merriam-webster.com] And then the deeper Oxford trick: Belsyre is not only a word; it is a name. St John’s, which owned the ground and therefore owned the privilege of naming it, had once had a President called Alexander Belsyre—a founding-era figure, not exactly heroic, but undeniably ancestral. So the building’s title can be heard in three registers at once: as a proper noun, as an archaic common noun, and as a faintly comic faux-French. Oxford likes names that can be glossed without being settled. [sjc.ox.ac.uk] That is the difference between Sandown and Belsyre. Sandown is aspiration: a provincial household sending itself postcards from the coast. Belsyre is incorporation: Oxford reminding you that your domestic life is still being lived on College land, under a name that whispers “ancestor” as if the lease were hereditary. The implicature is almost too neat: you have moved out of the College, but you have not moved out of the College. So one begins to wonder—am I a country gentleman, or what? A man who names his house after seaside echoes; then a man whose house is named after somebody else’s ancestor. It is the same vanity in two costumes: first, self-bestowed; then, institutionally bestowed, which is the more dangerous kind because it feels like destiny. And this is why the Belsyre (we do not say “Court”; that is understood) is such an Oxford address. It is not merely where you live. It is a small lesson in how Oxford makes place-names do social work: turning bricks into lineage, and a marriage into a change of metaphysics. Belsyre, 1952 (Blame it on Timothy) Belsyre, 1952. Blame it on Timothy. “So for the birthday invitations,” he says, with the grave practicality of the very young, “I just have to write Belsyre?” “Yes,” my wife says. “Belsyre. That will do.” I add—because I cannot resist improving what already works—“You can add Alexander Belsyre.” This produces the right sort of silence: the silence which means, conversationally, Father is being clever again and will shortly be a nuisance. It would, of course, look like an insult on an envelope. It would scare, not so much the children—who are fearless and illiterate in equal measure—as their parents, who are literate and therefore cautious. There are forms of wit that are socially expensive, and address-lines are one of them. Karen, who has inherited my appetite for improper questions, intervenes. “Who was Alexander Belsyre, father?” “Tomorrow,” I say; which is my standard way of postponing a lecture while sounding as if I have scheduled it. (The implicature, in a house, is always that “tomorrow” means “when I can’t wriggle out of it.”) So today I do the required browsing in the old volumes—the kind of browsing one does in Oxford when one is trying to make a name behave like a description. I begin with the expectation of dignity. One expects an “Alexander Belsyre” to be a benefactor, a builder, a scholar, possibly a martyr—some figure whose name may properly be stamped on brick and rent. And I find instead the Oxford truth: the first President of St John’s, appointed in the Founder’s charter, was deprived of office for theft and perjury. The Founder himself, Sir Thomas White, later set down the story in a letter: a loan of £60 “in custody for the College’s use,” which Belsyre later tried to reduce to £40 by offering to swear it, obligingly, before witnesses. The Founder had kept a record of the payment—Oxford’s oldest maxim is that paper beats piety—and the President was promptly “removyd and dysplacyd,” and the Fellows were commanded never again to admit him to any office, room, annuity, or fellowship. [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] [sjc.ox.ac.uk] It gets better in the way only College history can be better. The man retires to Hanborough and becomes, in the official phrasing, “an old wealthy and stubborn recusant,” confined within two miles, like a philosopher being restricted to his own examples. He dies in 1567. [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [british-hi...tory.ac.uk] [en.wikipedia.org], [sjc.ox.ac.uk] Which means that our address—Belsyre—does not quite mean “bel air,” and not even securely “belsire” in the dictionary sense, but rather: St John’s ancestry, with a moral attached. The building sits on St John’s land, and St John’s has named it, in effect, after one of its earliest “ancestors”; but it has picked an ancestor with the sort of instructive blemish Oxford privately enjoys. You live under the wings of your College, yes—but the wings belong to a man who couldn’t be trusted with a loan. At tea, Karen waits for the promised “tomorrow,” which has arrived early. “Well?” she says. “Who was he?” “A warning,” I say. “A President.” “A President of what?” “Of St John’s. The first. He began by being appointed in a charter and ended by being dismissed for financial imagination. Oxford has always had a taste for moral pedagogy disguised as architecture.” [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] Timothy, who has been listening with the severity of someone who suspects adults of unnecessary plot, asks the only sensible question. “So I shouldn’t write it on the invitations?” “No,” I say. “Write Belsyre. That is quite enough ancestry for a child’s party.” “And what does Belsyre mean?” Karen persists. “Does it mean bel sire?” “It means,” I say, “that you can move from Sandown to Belsyre and begin to wonder whether you are a country gentleman or only a tenant with delusions. Sandown was our own little seaside echo; Belsyre is Oxford’s echo of itself. Sandown is aspiration; Belsyre is incorporation. One name is chosen to make a house sound like a holiday; the other is chosen to make a flat sound like a lineage.” My wife looks at me with the look that cancels a paragraph. “So,” she says, “you’ll address the envelopes?” “I will,” I say. “Responsibility, not commentary.” Which is how I end up, pen in hand, writing Belsyre—and not writing Alexander Belsyre—and feeling, absurdly, that this is what it means to be domesticated by a College: you learn exactly how much history is socially tolerable in a postcode. I am fully ashamed that I did not know the man was a thief until prompted by a conversational move. One likes to think one’s ignorance has at least the decency to remain private; but conversation has the irritating habit of turning ignorance into homework. And now I see the whole spectacle again, as if the city had been waiting for me to catch up: those afternoons when I would ramble up the Woodstock Road and find, at the corner by Observatory Road, that odd thing going up—brick by brick, with a seriousness that looked almost ecclesiastical until one noticed the shopfronts. “What will this be?” I recall asking a mason, as if masons were the natural custodians of urban teleology. “Belsyre,” was the answer. It all comes back. At the time I thought he meant Belisario—Donizetti—because the ear, when it is young, is always over-eager to turn Oxford into opera. I carried the misunderstanding back to Corpus and repeated it at dinner, and was corrected with that particular cruelty undergraduates reserve for one another: not a blunt “no,” but an elaborate explanation that makes your mistake feel like a defect of character. It was all in the news then—not in the Oxford Gazette (this was extra-mural, a Town matter, not a Gown one), but in the Town’s own press, which treated St John’s as a landlord first and a College only second. The gist, as I remember it, was that the Governing Body of St John’s had decided it was high time to give Belsyre some credit; and the insinuation—one could almost hear it between the lines—was that a man may be disgraced, and yet still be “ancestral,” and ancestry in Oxford is a currency of its own. The College version, when I finally hunted it down, was better because it was older and therefore more shameless. Sir Thomas White’s letter is the sort of thing that makes you grateful for archives: it does not moralise; it records. A President, a sum of money, a proposed oath, and then the verdict in that hard Tudor English which has the virtue of sounding like a door being shut: promptly “removyd and dysplacyd,” and the Fellows were commanded never again to admit him to any office, room, annuity, or fellowship. There is something magnificently Oxford about the permanence of that sentence: it is an attempt to legislate a man out of the future. And yet—here is the joke the College has played on itself, or perhaps on us—we live in Belsyre. The command persists, in a fashion: he is not to be admitted to any room, and so he is admitted to all of them, in the only way Oxford reliably admits the dead—by naming the building and letting the living carry the syllables up the staircase. The building itself, in my memory, had the air of a compromise pretending to be a style: that North Oxford grandeur which is not quite grandeur but knows the gestures. A mansion block that wants to look like a manor; a set of flats wearing a façade like an academic gown. Barrow’s hand—Barrow was the architect, I later learned—managed the trick Oxford always wants: modern convenience dressed as ancestral continuity. A courtyard to make it feel collegiate; a parade of shops to make it pay; and enough mock‑Tudor rhetoric—gables, brickwork, that slightly over-confident domestic medievalism—to reassure suburbia that it is not merely suburban but historic by implication. It would have been too much, of course, to build it in a truly honest modern style. Honesty in architecture is like candour in conversation: admired in principle, punished in practice. The other detail, once learned, is the one Oxford makes you live with. Belsyre—the man—retires to Hanborough, not far away, and dies in 1567. It is absurdly close: close enough that the mind wants to turn it into a walk, and therefore into a ritual. A monument at Hanborough within reach of my own daily route—my tall, gangly figure going down and up again, morning and evening, from 1942 onwards, as if I were commuting between my domestic annex and the College’s main body, between the living institution and its dead presidency. One cannot be sure one ever passed the stone that marks him; but one can be sure that Oxford intended the proximity to mean something, because Oxford always intends proximity to mean something. And then—because one is weak—one begins to relish the College’s choice in retrospect. If you must live under an ancestor’s name, better a compromised ancestor than a saint: a thief is at least human, and human beings are what philosophy is supposed to be about. “First President” is a splendid title, far better than “first Cistercian,” and I confess I never took a liking to White. White owns moral philosophy here in his own pious way, and I have had enough of moral philosophy as property: first Ross while I was at Corpus; then Paton with his Kantian severity; and then Austin taking over and making morality sound like a branch of etiquette—until, at last, one begins to dream of a chair that would tell the truth in its title. But of course one cannot have the Belsyre Chair of Immoral Philosophy. That would be too explicit; and Oxford prefers its jokes to remain implicatures. It is enough that we live at the Belsyre, four of us—more than four would not be company but a veritable crowd—and that the very address performs the quiet Oxford lesson: you can be “removyd and dysplacyd,” and still have the last word, provided the last word is a name. And so Timothy writes “Belsyre” on his invitations and never suspects that he is inviting his classmates under the wings of a President who was forbidden, by statute, to have any room at all. The birthday party was appropriately noisy, and I enjoyed watching Tim’s friends play outside—in the heart of the Belsyre, where the building’s inward court performs its little Oxford trick: it makes a crowd sound like company. Over tea, with the little beasts (all elbows, crumbs, and sudden treaties), Tim screams aloud: “Father, tell my friends about the twenty!” “The twenty what?” “The twenty quid.” He was referring to the parchment I had been reciting to him the day before, while he painstakingly wrote: “Please come to my birthday party not too late for early high tea. 14 Belsyre.” The phrase that had lodged in his pure heart was not “removyd and dysplacyd,” but the arithmetic: a loan of £60 “in custody for the College’s use,” which Belsyre later tried to reduce to £40 by offering to swear it, obligingly, before witnesses. “Tried to?” Tim asks now, in front of his guests, with the relish of a child who has discovered that history contains cliff-hangers. “Did he succeed?” My wife intervenes at once, because wives are the natural enemies of suspense. “He did,” she says. “At least for long enough to make it worth writing about.” “So it’s a twenty-quid business,” I say—making it Cockney on purpose, because she dislikes the Cockneyism and because nothing livens up a children’s party like a small domestic skirmish about register. Karen, ever the metaphysician, adds: “But twenty pounds then wasn’t what it is now.” “Then what?” Tim asks, with the air of a follower of McTaggart who suspects that time is a confidence-trick. “How much was it?” “Somewhere in the old days,” my wife says, which is what one says when one wants a historian without wishing to admit it. “Where is your uncle when you need him,” she adds—meaning W. S. Watson, the family historian, who lived at the Belsyre until he decamped, in 1966, to St Andrews (the only place in Britain where one can move north and still feel one is moving into more Latin). “In 1566,” I say with manufactured authority, because nothing is so soothing at a party as a father pretending to have consulted ledgers rather than memory. “That is the year of White’s letter, and that is the year of the twenty.” “And twenty pounds in 1566,” Karen insists, “is not twenty pounds today.” I decide—fatally—to give “the exact conversion,” because philosophers are always tempted by numbers, as if numbers could settle what conversation only manages. “On a simple inflation-style calculator,” I begin, “you can check the change in the value of money back to the thirteenth century.” The official sort—Bank of England does it, if one likes a seal on one’s arithmetic. And the National Archives has a Tudor-oriented converter for precisely this kind of classroom question. [bankofengland.co.uk] [nationalar...ves.gov.uk] But then I have to admit what every historian knows and every child suspects: that Tudor sums do not convert cleanly into modern ones, because the thing you are converting is not merely currency but a whole way of living. £20 is not a “note”; it is a capacity: wages, rent, grain, labour, obligation. Tim’s friends stare at me with the look children reserve for adults who are turning cake into pedagogy. So I retreat to a Gricean truth: the moral doesn’t require a precise figure. “It was enough,” I say, “for Sir Thomas White to treat it as a serious theft, not a clerical error. If it had been trifling, Oxford would have smiled and called it a misunderstanding. Instead it wrote ‘removyd and dysplacyd’ and meant it.” “And so he was a thief,” Tim concludes, pleased at the clarity. “A veritable one,” I say. “And the sad thing is that he seems not to have had a companion with whom to share honesty—only witnesses with whom to share an oath.” My wife gives me the look that indicates I am once again near the boundary between wit and bad taste. Karen, however, saves me by asking the only question that matters at a children’s party: “Can we go back outside?” And thus the twenty pounds—large enough to unmake a President, but not large enough to hold a courtyard’s attention—returns to its proper status in family life: an anecdote, briefly useful, promptly outplayed. “Belsyre” (1946): Grice, newly back, writing to Mother. I came up to Oxford again—“up” only by habit of speech, for geographically it is nothing of the sort—after the Admiralty and the war-work in Whitehall, and it felt at once familiar and slightly indecent, like putting on an old gown after you’ve been wearing uniform long enough to forget you ever owned anything that flapped. There is a particular kind of hush Oxford manages after a national noise. London, for all its stoicism, is always audible. Oxford, by contrast, can seem to be listening to itself. In 1946 she was resuming her pre-war mannerisms—tutorials, tea, committees, the endless pretence that the world is kept in being by footnotes—yet one could still feel the war as a draught moving under the door. The first practical fact of my return was domestic, and in Oxford the domestic is always institutional. Having married in 1942, I could not go on living in St John’s as if I were still a bachelor attached to a staircase. A college will tolerate almost anything in a young man—lateness, eccentricity, even metaphysics—but it grows abruptly literal about wives. So St John’s did the Oxford thing: it removed me from the College, and then immediately re‑attached me to it by other means. We were placed at Belsyre Court, the great block a short walk away, so that I might be properly married and still, as it were, properly collegiate. The walk is the point. If you are a don, you want to be close enough to the College that your legs can do the commuting without your mind treating it as travel. Belsyre is about ten minutes on foot, and the route has that pleasing Oxford continuity: St Giles’ running into Woodstock Road, the city pretending not to change as it changes its name. One walks down, or up, depending on one’s moral temperament, and arrives at St John’s almost before one has finished thinking one’s first thought. That matters more than people admit: philosophy is not done in the abstract; it is done by bodies with habits. Belsyre, from the street, makes a show of itself. Along Woodstock Road there is the Tuscan colonnade—simple columns, plain capitals, a kind of understated classical gesture—fronting a parade of shops.  But the important point, for those who live there, is that you do not really enter from the road at all. The building’s official address is on Woodstock Road (nowadays it is recorded as 57 Woodstock Road), yet the residential entrance is tucked away into the inner world of the block, facing the quieter side, off Observatory Street, into the courtyard. [britishlis...ings.co.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] [historicen...and.org.uk], [en.wikipedia.org], [search.savills.com] That architectural decision always pleased me. It is, if you like, an implicature in brick: the public face for the town, the private face for the residents. One step off Woodstock Road and the traffic is suddenly a rumour rather than a fact. You are inside a U‑shaped court—brick with stone dressings, “Jacobethan” in the local idiom—built in 1936 and, by Oxford standards, practically futuristic. [britishlis...ings.co.uk], [en.wikipedia.org], [historicen...and.org.uk] Inside, the building behaves less like a row of rooms and more like a little system. There were shops and offices at the lower level—famously the Inland Revenue had a presence there for years—so one had the faintly comic experience of living above bureaucracy.  You could buy something trivial at street level and, a few steps later, remember that the state was also upstairs, counting. Oxford has always been good at that: reminding you that the life of the mind is housed by the life of accountancy. [en.wikipedia.org], [britishlis...ings.co.uk] And then there were the lifts. I mention lifts because an Oxford man of my generation did not “expect” them; one expected stairs, draughts, and the moral improvement of effort. Yet Belsyre had lifts, and not merely one.  In a block like that, the lift is not a convenience only; it is a social device. You see your neighbours without having to admit you are seeing them. You share a small box of silence and then disperse, grateful, into your separate lives. [britishlis...ings.co.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] Our own part of the building had a further peculiarity which I rather liked: the segmentation. The wings do not run into one another by long corridors; each section is, in effect, semi‑detached from the others on the upper floors. It is a way of giving privacy to a block, like giving each household a small fiction of being alone. In our own landing, we had the blessing of not being crowded: one neighbour, and that was enough society for a week. We were in Flat 25—a fine position—and it suited us in the way a well-chosen Oxford lodging always suits: by being a compromise that works. The flat was the right size for a young family (and became, as you say, more “ideal” once the children arrived). There were several bedrooms and a sitting‑room that, thanks to the windows, had a kind of collegiate air without the collegiate austerity. The windows were the moral centre of it. The grander ones looked not to Woodstock Road—thank goodness—but toward the quieter side. The mullioned arrangement, the slightly old-fashioned leaded patterning, made the light fall as if it had been filtered by tradition. It gave one the impression of living in something older than it was, which is exactly what Oxford likes you to feel. And yet the building’s “luxury,” such as it was, was not really spaciousness in the country‑house sense. It was functional modernity: warmth that arrived without ceremony, the sort of heating that made the winter less of a philosophical test; and those practical services which, once you have them, you become embarrassed to have lived without. The waste disposal system meant one did not live by bins and bags; one lived by gravity and chutes—civilisation expressed as an engineering shortcut. When the children came, the court itself became part of the flat. They could play in the courtyard, in sight but not in danger, or we could take them out to the University Parks, just along, where Oxford lets children behave as if the world were made for them. That, too, is a difference between a college room and a family dwelling: the space outside begins to matter. A staircase at St John’s gives you stone and echoes. Belsyre gave us a little patch of managed outdoors and the luxury of being ordinary. What I liked most, if I am honest, was the balance between closeness and retreat. One could be in College quickly—close enough to be useful, close enough to be visible—without having to live inside the College’s own perpetual conversation. Marriage changes one’s appetite for common rooms. One still likes company; one merely prefers to choose it. It also throws one’s colleagues’ arrangements into relief. Some of the others—those I thought of as the “Play Group,” in that loose sense of a circle of talk rather than a club with rules—were not so centrally placed. H. L. A. Hart was more in the middle of things, nearer the law; Stuart Hampshire was nearer the Parks for a time; P. F. Strawson later acquired a North Oxford villa with garden and all the accompanying inconveniences (I always thought the absence of central heating a kind of self-imposed moralism). The Warnocks, too, did the villa life off the Woodstock Road area, which meant gardens and, again, the practical nuisance of an older domestic machinery. Pears and Urmson were, as you say, separate animals altogether—Pears with his entomological obsessions and Urmson up in Headington, more properly suburban. My own arrangement—flat, rented, modern—was a different species: what one might call the professional rental at the higher end, designed for people who wanted North Oxford’s prestige without North Oxford’s detached-house chores. In a city where the past is often worn as proof of virtue, there is something quietly radical about being comfortable on purpose. If you want the “house behind the man,” as you put it, this is it: not grandeur, not romance, but a kind of engineered suitability. After Whitehall and war-work, that suitability felt almost like a moral good. One had done enough improvising. It was time, in 1946, to live somewhere that did not require courage to be warm. Wednesday, 3 October 1954 I have been turning the whole business over in my head since yesterday evening, and I find that what stays with one is not the words—one never quite remembers one’s own words—but the sequence of small practicalities by which a thing is made to happen. We had agreed, Pears, Strawson, and I, to go up to London for the Third Programme. The title, “Metaphysics”, is on the listings; and I am told it sits there still in the Genome archive, though one does not find, in the public records, the detail that would satisfy an archivist with a taste for the merely technical: which room, which engineer, which particular studio. Broadcasting House was the place, Portland Place; and in those years the talk was nearly always done in one of the little talks studios, the kind built for three voices and not much else—usually in the third- or fourth-floor series, the sort of room that is called 3B or 4B when it is being spoken of by someone who works there. If you want the exact designation, you would have to consult the As Broadcast logs or the Daily Programme Records, and those are not in the public eye but in the physical files at Caversham, at the BBC Written Archives Centre, where the old handwriting and the technical notes still govern one’s curiosity. We went by train, of course; that is what Oxford academics did, and it was, in a mild way, part of the point. There is a way in which these broadcasts were treated, by those who arranged them, as an extension of Oxford life by other means: the same three men, the same sort of talk, merely transplanted to a room in London with a clock and a red light. The producer, Anna Kallin, gave that impression strongly. She had the gift—so I am told, and it seems right—of taking dense academic philosophy and making it behave on the wireless. Born in St Petersburg, educated in Germany and France, and then in London; and in her office in Broadcasting House she managed a surprising proportion of what the BBC thought worth broadcasting in philosophy. We arrived at Paddington, and then came the small decision that always feels, in retrospect, like a philosophical problem only because it had to be made under time pressure: Tube or taxi. One can be austere about these things, and claim one ought to take the Underground; but one is also carrying oneself, and one’s papers, and one’s nerves. We took a taxi. The route is short enough, Paddington to Oxford Circus, and you arrive at Broadcasting House as if you have done nothing but shift register—from the compartment to the studio—without the indignities of stairs and crowds. Kallin received us with a practised warmth: businesslike, not gushing, the kind of welcome that tells you you are expected and that you are also not to become precious about it. Then the lift, then the third floor, then the corridor that feels, like all corridors in such buildings, as if it were designed to discourage loitering. The studio itself was as I had imagined it would be: small, controlled, and made for voices. It is a curious thing to be placed in a room where the whole purpose is that you should sound at ease. The talk was half an hour, and the hour—10.15 p.m.—gave it the air of something meant for people who were willing to stay up to listen to metaphysics. I knew, unhelpfully, that my wife would have the wireless on at Belsyre Court, in North Oxford, and that she would be listening for a voice that, in ordinary life, she heard without amplification. That knowledge does not steady a man; it merely adds a second audience, imagined but sharp. There is a habit among some colleagues, former students, and the more glib historians of philosophy, of treating me as if I could not speak to save my life. The oddity is that this broadcast is precisely the counterexample: whatever one thinks of my manner, one does not get invited to the Third Programme at that hour, with Pears and Strawson, unless one is, at least for that moment, taken to be worth hearing. If one wants a moral, it is that reputations are often made from the wrong evidence. As for the substance, it was what the title promised: the nature of metaphysics, and whether it is anything more than a respectable way of producing nonsense. We name-dropped as philosophers do when they are trying to give a radio audience both landmarks and reassurance: Aristotle and Kant, certainly, but also John Wisdom, Carnap, and Collingwood. The Wisdom point, the one that stays with me now, is the thought that metaphysics may be nonsense and yet an interesting nonsense—interesting not because it is true, but because it reveals the temptations of the mind and the mischief of language. I cannot now swear which sentence was mine and which was another’s; the talk, at least as I remember it, was conversational in tone, and conversation has the peculiar property of making ownership hard to assign. That difficulty becomes more pronounced because the thing did not remain only a talk. It was, later, edited and published—1957—appearing in Pears’s The Nature of Metaphysics, with Macmillan. The printed version reads as if it were one continuous passage, and I should not be surprised if Pears, with an editor’s instinct, merged and smoothed so that the seams no longer show. On the page, one is tempted to imagine a single authorial voice, and that is almost certainly false. The broadcast had three voices; the publication has, in effect, one. There were reviews, too. One of the small consolations of doing something on the wireless is that it can be heard by people who are not doing it, and sometimes they write in a way that reminds you that an audience exists. I have been told that Radio Times carried a notice by a member of the audience who liked it and found it informative. That is the sort of sentence that sounds trivial until one recalls how much of metaphysics is conducted as if the only relevant hearers were already initiated. If someone were to ask me, now, which studio it was, I should say: one of the small talks studios, almost certainly on the third or fourth floor, the kind used for intimate multi-speaker discussion. If someone insisted on the number, I should send them to Caversham. If someone asked what I said, I should offer them the printed text and then warn them, gently, that it will not tell them who said what. And if someone asked whether I was nervous, I should answer, more honestly than is fashionable, that I was, slightly; not because the topic was difficult, but because the business of sounding like oneself into a microphone is always a little odd, and because I knew that, in Belsyre Court, the wireless would be on. I was demobilised in 1945, and I remember the oddness of it more vividly than I remember any single day at sea. One is returned to civilian life not by a philosophical argument, but by a piece of paper, a signature, and the feeling that one is suddenly permitted to have ordinary plans again. The war, which some people insisted on calling “phoney” in its opening phase, had never felt phoney to those of us who had to stand watches and keep accounts of what might happen next. It had a particular habit of making time feel both repetitive and discontinuous: the same duties, the same routines, punctuated by alarms and shifts in circumstance that left you, afterwards, surprised by your own calm. By the end I was in London, not in uniform but in a suit, as a civilian intelligence officer at the Admiralty, working in the Naval Intelligence Division from 1942 to 1945. It is an odd status, that of the civilian specialist: close enough to the machinery of war to feel responsible, distant enough from the ordinary marks of service to feel, sometimes, as if one is borrowing seriousness from others. Like many Oxford men recruited for whatever “logical and linguistic skills” the state suddenly discovers it values, I worked among people for whom language had become an instrument, sometimes almost a weapon, and whose patience for metaphysical niceties had been cured by events. My address in those years is not the sort of thing that becomes public record, and in truth the point is less the number on the door than the pattern of life. Most civilian staff travelled in daily, and many worked the gruelling rhythm of long shifts, with twelve hours on duty followed by twenty-four hours off, as if the body could be treated as a replaceable part. There were also the arrangements for those who could not be permitted to disappear during heavy bombing or long night watches. Behind the main Admiralty building, the Citadel, the windowless bomb-proof concrete block, existed for work that could not be interrupted. It was, above all, operational space, but it was also the sort of place where, when one had to stay, one stayed: basic bunk accommodation for essential personnel, and the kind of air that makes you understand why people become superstitious about daylight. I was not commuting in the way some did. The sensible thing, for someone in my position, was to keep “digs” in London, a small flat in Marylebone within easy distance of Whitehall, close enough to walk when the streets allowed it, and close enough that one did not have to gamble each morning on transport and timing. Oxford remained, for weekends or periods of leave, a base of sorts, but not by a daily rhythm. One does not do Admiralty hours and then jaunt back to a college staircase as if nothing has changed. And yet, as always in Oxford, the personal and the institutional interfered. I had been a Resident Fellow at St John’s when war broke out. When I married Kathleen Watson in 1942, that changed the most immediate arrangements. Colleges are good at benevolence, provided it is properly administered. Marriage meant I could not go on living in College in the old way, and we moved into Belsyre, on St John’s land in North Oxford, which gave one the curious sensation of leaving the College by a door that led straight back into College property. I knew, later, that she would have the wireless on and be listening; in those years I also knew that the domestic arrangements continued, somehow, even when one’s work was conducted in places built to withstand bombs. If I begin with Whitehall, it is only because memory likes to proceed from the last piece of a sequence to the first. Before the Admiralty years there was the earlier part, the part in the North Atlantic theatre of operations, 1940 to 1942, when I held a junior rank as a commissioned officer in the RNVR, the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. The “Volunteer” in the title always amused me, even at the time, because it had the air of a relic from an older England, when volunteering was a social gesture rather than an administrative category. By the time we were in it, volunteering had become a word whose history was no longer quite its meaning. Some men had choices of a sort, some had conscientious objections and paid for them socially, and some, like Geach, took a different line altogether; but the general drift was that the country had decided what it needed and then found a vocabulary to make it sound optional. Those sea years are confirmed in records, but the public accounts do not give the name of my ship. That is perhaps just as well, because one’s relationship to a ship is not the relationship one has to a house. It is closer, in some ways, to the relationship one has to an instrument: a thing you learn to trust because your life is staked on its reliability. In recalling her, I find myself referring to her as “she”, with the old naval superstition, and thinking of her less by name than by what she did: the cold routines, the sense of convoy and exposure, the long intervals in which nothing happens except that you continue to be there, and the sudden intervals in which everything changes at once. If I am to be honest, those years made me suspicious of the way people talk about “experience” as if it were a single thing. There is the experience of action, and there is the experience of endurance, and they do not teach the same lessons. On active duty, one learns that an order is a kind of speech act with consequences that do not wait for the listener to have grasped the fine structure of what was meant. Later, in intelligence work, one learns that the fine structure is sometimes exactly what matters, because what is said and what is meant can come apart in ways that are not merely academic. What strikes me now, looking back from the point of demobilisation, is the continuity of certain habits under different costumes. On the ship I was in uniform and the hierarchy was visible. At the Admiralty I was in business attire, a suit, and the hierarchy was hidden behind doors, offices, and access. But in both settings, one lived by forms: timings, routines, the assumption that people mean to be understood, and the equally important assumption that people sometimes mean to be misunderstood. For an Oxford man who had been trained to believe that the smallest differences in phrasing might signal the largest differences in thought, the war provided a brutal education in when that training is a help and when it is merely a mannerism. And then, suddenly, it ended. Demobilisation did not feel like triumph; it felt like release into a life that one had to learn again. Oxford was there, as if it had been waiting, and it resumed its habits with an almost indecent steadiness. One went back to tutorials and committees and talk, and yet the war had left, in the background, a sense of what “seriousness” can mean when it is not merely academic. One last thing, because it matters for how people imagine the period. The Admiralty years were not spent as some sort of romantic espionage. They were spent in the nerve centre of Whitehall, with work that was often tedious, frequently pressured, and always governed by the assumption that a mistake might not remain merely a mistake. That atmosphere has a moral effect. It makes one impatient with pompous vagueness, and it makes one grateful for clarity, even when clarity is unflattering. If any of my later insistence on stating conditions, specifying intentions, and tracing what follows from what has its roots outside Oxford, some of it is there: in offices without windows, in long shifts, in the habit of treating language not as decoration but as a form of disciplined action. The Walk When I speak of “the Walk” I mean something embarrassingly short, the sort of journey which, if you describe it at all, sounds like boasting about having crossed the Rubicon when you have merely crossed a carpet. Corpus was my alma mater; later I moved, skipping Rossall for present purposes, to Merton; and the comedy is that I barely moved at all. One might call it a relocation by implicature. Both colleges sit on Merton Street. In the modern manner one can even write down the address in the way the Post Office now likes it: Merton Street, Oxford OX1 4JF. In the old days, of course, no one needed to write the last part. One did not say OX1 4JF, any more than one said that the Bodleian is made of stone. One simply said Corpus, or Merton, and let the rest be inferred. Oxford is a place in which most geography is carried by presupposition. The physical fact is simple enough. Merton and Corpus are essentially neighbours, and the walk between them is, in ordinary time, two minutes. If you step out from Corpus onto Merton Street and head west along the same road, you arrive at Merton with scarcely enough time to regret the decision. There is even Rossall in between, which is to say that one can pass through the interval and yet retain the feeling of having stayed put. The joke writes itself, and I confess I enjoyed it in a way that was, if you like, Griceian. Before, I was at Corpus on Merton; now I am at Merton on Merton. It pleased me not because it was witty, but because it showed something about how Oxford works. Oxford is a small pocket of space disguised as a vast institution. One “moves” from college to college, and the movement is made to sound like a change of world, when in fact it may be the merest adjustment of one’s daily route. In my case, skipping Rossall, I remained in the same tiny patch of the University as I moved from being a Scholar to holding a senior scholarship. One’s intellectual life may shift profoundly, but one’s feet are still on the same paving stones. In those days, nobody said “Merton Street” unless there was a practical reason to say it. One did not usually need the street-name because the college-name did the work, and did it more politely. If you said “Corpus” you implicated the location without ever stating it, and that seemed the right level of explicitness for the place. To say “Corpus, Merton Street” would have sounded faintly like saying “my hand, at the end of my arm.” True, but pedantic, and pedantry in Oxford is supposed to be of the learned sort, not the municipal. Besides, even “Merton Street” is a bit of a misnomer if you stare at it too hard. It does not mean what a newcomer thinks it means. It does not mean that Corpus is in some simple geometrical way “on” Merton Street, as if the college were a shopfront and the street were its shelf. It means, more subtly, that the main entrance faces the street; and that is a different spatial consideration altogether. One could almost drag Kant into it, if one wanted to be silly: not the thing-in-itself of the college’s physical spread, but the orientation under which it is presented to a passer-by. Oxford is full of such distinctions, and it trains you to live by them without calling them by name. So the Walk became, for me, a small emblem. It is one of the ways Oxford teaches you that what matters is not always the distance traversed, but the way in which you describe the traversal. The facts are modest: two minutes, one street, one direction, west along Merton Street. The philosophical amusement is immodest: I changed colleges while barely changing my position, and I acquired, in the process, a private joke about being at Merton on Merton instead of Corpus on Merton. And the larger moral, if one insists on a moral, is that Oxford permits, and even encourages, a life in which much is left unsaid and yet perfectly understood. Grice and the Flick When I was President of the Oxford Film Society I learned, among other things, that one can be intensely serious about something that is, in the end, a beam of light thrown at a screen in the dark. Oxford has a special talent for investing diversions with a moral air, and I confess I did not resist the temptation. We spoke of film as an art form rather than as mass entertainment, and in the same breath behaved exactly like a small club of undergraduates and young dons who wanted an excuse to sit together on a Sunday evening and feel superior to ordinary people who went to the pictures without programme notes. The centre of gravity for us was the Scala on Walton Street. It was the right sort of place for what we called, with a straight face, “unusual” films: foreign films, French films, the sort of thing that arrived with a reputation and required, in return, a little reverence. Oxford in those days did not have many venues devoted to international and experimental cinema; the Scala, for our purposes, was the natural habitat. I used to walk up from St John’s to Walton Street with the sense of doing a small pilgrimage: out of the Colleges’ stone seriousness and into a different darkness, one that pretended to be purely recreational but was, for us, another arena of instruction. The Society’s rhythm followed the academic year as if it had been designed to do so. Term-time screenings, one major screening a week, typically on Sunday evenings or Monday afternoons during the eight weeks of Michaelmas, Hilary, and Trinity. The arrangement suited Oxford’s habits: you could lecture, dine, and then be educated again at the Scala, all without admitting that you were seeking relief. As President I was responsible for selecting the repertoire and for writing the programme notes. The notes were supposed to be helpful, but I suspect they were often dense, because I was incapable, then as now, of letting a simple thing remain simple if it offered itself as an example. We did not merely watch films. We behaved as if we were studying them. We held “film study” sessions and social gatherings for members, often in my rooms at St John’s, where coffee, cigarettes, and argument combined into a format Oxford understands instinctively. I would sometimes offer an introduction at the screening and then, afterwards, try to steer the post-screening talk away from the merely evaluative, the “good” and “bad,” and toward the question that really interested me: what was meant, as opposed to what was merely shown. That distinction, which later took on a technical life in my work, was already there as a habit. Film makes you conscious of it because the director is always doing things to you without announcing that he is doing them. My tastes were, as people would say, continental, though I was not above laughing at myself for it. French poetic realism appealed to me, and I was a significant admirer of Renoir. I was happiest when we screened La Grande Illusion and La Règle du Jeu, because in Renoir the dialogue and the social context carry a great deal of the work. Characters say one thing and mean another, and the audience is expected to know, with very little overt instruction, how to take it. That seemed to me not merely dramatic but philosophically instructive: a lesson in how meaning is recovered from context, and in how a speaker can rely on an audience to do more than decode words. Then there was Soviet montage. Eisenstein, and Potemkin in particular, gave us a different sort of “language”: not the language of dialogue and social nuance, but the technical language of editing. The cuts do the talking. Meaning is built not by what is in a single frame but by what is placed next to what. I used to encourage members to notice that this is a kind of inference: one shot plus another shot yields something third, and the third thing is not strictly present in either. It is a way of making an audience supply what is not shown. We also leaned on early German expressionism, with films like Caligari. Here the interest is not in what anyone says, because speech is not the vehicle; the visual atmosphere does the work. It is a reminder that communication is not, in the first instance, verbal. One can convey attitude, threat, irony, and even a kind of metaphysics by line, shadow, and distortion. If one were already suspicious of any theory that makes language the whole of meaning, Caligari was a corrective. And yet, despite the continental seriousness, I had a deep respect for Chaplin. If one wants evidence that complex human emotion and social critique can be communicated with minimal dialogue, Chaplin provides it. I used to think of him as a demonstration that what matters is not the quantity of words but the control of expectation. You show the audience one thing, you invite them to anticipate another, and then you deliver a third. If one wanted a precursor to the thought that we often mean more than we say, or mean something other than the literal content, it is there in Chaplin’s timing and in the way he recruits the audience’s assumptions. The programme notes were my particular vice. I would try, dutifully, to guide the audience toward what to look for, but also to suggest that the real work is done by the viewer’s own inferences. I rather liked pointing out where a film violates an expectation deliberately, because those violations are often the places where the meaning lives. People think “communication” is what is explicitly stated; film, by being so often silent about its own strategy, teaches you the opposite. I had my private favourites too, the kind that do not quite fit the Society’s official self-image. My all-time favourite was The Secret Agent, and second to it The Third Man. I knew perfectly well that neither could be defended as pure avant-garde art; they are entertainments of a high order, and they work because they understand how to make an audience collaborate. I also had the sort of preferences that sound, when confessed, either sentimental or unserious, and perhaps they are both. My favourite female star was Norma Shearer. Ray Bolger, improbably, remained a favourite male star. If you want a philosophical moral from that, you can have it: one’s tastes do not form a consistent system, and any theory that pretends they do is bound to be false. What I remember most clearly is not the administrative work but the small moments after a screening, when a member said something in discussion that revealed they had seen what I hoped they would see, or had seen something I had missed. Those were the gratifying occasions, because they showed that the audience was not passive. Film, at its best, is a cooperative venture between director and viewer; the director supplies cues, the viewer supplies conclusions. That is why I sometimes think of those Scala evenings as part of my education in what later became my official business. In philosophy one talks about inference and intention and understanding as if they were abstract relations. In the cinema you watch them happen, quietly, in real time, in the dark, with a roomful of people who are all making the same leap and then laughing at the same moment, as if they had been told what to do, when in fact they were only invited. Bridge If someone were to insist on describing me with a pair of epithets, I should hope they would at least choose ones that do not quarrel. I have sometimes wondered what a newspaper might do with a life that contains, on the one hand, professional philosophy, and on the other, a steady devotion to games which are not quite games and not quite studies: cricket, chess, and bridge. The point is not that these diversions are decorations; the point is that they are continuous with the habits one needs to do philosophy without falling into mere rhetoric. Bridge, in Oxford, is not “somewhere” in the way a pavilion is somewhere. It is everywhere and nowhere, like the better kind of talk. It lives in Senior Common Rooms, and therefore in a certain kind of evening, after Hall, when the air shifts from official conviviality to the more serious business of competition conducted under manners. At St John’s, as in other colleges, bridge is a staple of high-table social life, partly because it is genuinely interesting and partly because it allows one to be intensely calculating while still appearing civil. One can say “Two hearts” in the tone of passing the salt, and yet one is, in effect, placing a thesis before an audience that must respond. I played within those circles, and also through Oxfordshire county affiliations, as one does if one cannot help making one’s hobbies slightly organised. Friends were kind enough to say that my precision carried over into my play. I took that as a compliment, though it has the faint sting of suggesting that I was incapable of being imprecise even when being imprecise might have been more charming. But bridge rewards a certain sort of exactness, not the fussy exactness of pedantry, but the practical exactness of inference: what is the most reasonable story about your partner’s hand, given what has been said and given what has not been said. That is why I preferred bridge to poker. Poker is all too often a contest in theatricality, and the charm of it lies in the licence to mislead. Bridge, at least in its respectable forms, is more above-board. Deception exists, of course, but it is tightly bounded: in contract bridge, one is constrained by partnership, by disclosure norms, and by the fact that the aim is not to mesmerise an opponent into a mistake but to coordinate with an ally under rules that forbid the more vulgar methods. Poker flatters the solitary bluffer. Bridge flatters the cooperative strategist. It also matters which bridge one means. People speak as if bridge were one thing, but the heart of it, for a serious player, is auction bridge as it developed into contract bridge: the bidding as a coded conversation, the play of the hand as a test of that conversation, and then the post-mortem as the only honest philosophy most men will tolerate at midnight. The “auction” part is what makes it intellectually addictive: each bid is both a move and a message, and the message is designed to be understood by one person in particular, with the rest of the table listening in and yet not entitled to share the understanding. That asymmetry is delicious. If one wants to be mischievous, one can say that bridge is a seminar in implicature for people who would never attend a seminar in implicature. The bid means what it says under the conventions, and yet it very often means more than it says, because it is produced under pressures of relevance, economy, and strategy. One does not state everything; one cannot. One relies on the partner to infer. One relies, too, on the partner to recognise that one is relying on him to infer. This is not a metaphor imported into my philosophy; it is the same form of life appearing under different lighting. Bridge sat, for me, alongside cricket and chess as a trio of competitive hobbies I kept up throughout my life. Cricket was the public one, the one that makes you look less like a don and more like a creature with muscles. I was, by the accounts people like to repeat, an extremely effective and prolific opening batsman for the Oxfordshire county team and for the Demijohns cricket club. Chess was the solitary counterpart: quiet, exacting, and merciless about consequence. I have been called a good chess player, which is the sort of praise that sounds larger than it is and yet is not easy to earn. And then there was music, too, not competitive but disciplined: the piano, the steady reminder that timing is not a metaphor. What I liked about bridge, in the end, was the peculiar combination of severity and sociability. It is serious without being solemn. It is competitive without being brutish. It demands a kind of rational nerve: you must make a bid before you can possibly know everything you would like to know, and you must then live with the obligations you have created. That, too, has its philosophical analogue. And if, one day, someone were to write a line about me that tried to hold together the professional and the amateur without embarrassment, I should not mind if it sounded something like “professional philosopher and amateur cricketer.” It would leave out bridge and chess and the piano, certainly; but perhaps the implicature would be that these, too, belonged to the same person, and belonged there without apology. A bit about cricket If you want to know where cricket lived for me in Oxford, you must begin not with a pavilion but with a walk. I used to leave Belsyre and make my way up toward the St John’s sports ground on Woodstock Road. It is the sort of fifteen-minute walk that Oxford makes you believe is both nothing and everything: nothing, because one can do it without thinking; everything, because one does, in fact, think while doing it. By the time I arrived, I had often already rehearsed the first over in my head, and perhaps a remark or two I would later wish I had not made. The Demijohns Cricket Club, in due course, played its home matches at those St John’s sports grounds in North Oxford. The club’s existence had, as these things do, a story that the club itself found irresistible, and I was not immune to the pleasure of the joke embedded in its name. Demijohns. Not Johns, but demi-Johns: an alumni club, a half-step away from the full institutional identity, as if we were admitting, with a wink, that once you have left the College you remain attached to it by a kind of diluted essence. Oxford is rich in such half-memberships. They are how it keeps hold of you while pretending to let you go. Before the Demijohns there were the Barnacles. I was a founder member, and the description of us as “well-mannered but viciously competitive academics” is accurate enough to sting. One might suppose that academics, being devoted to reason, would not take games seriously. In fact, it is precisely because we take reason seriously that we take games seriously. A game is a system in which a man’s excuses can be tested. Cricket has the additional charm that it allows an Englishman to be ruthless while still looking gentlemanly, which is a talent we have elevated into a civic virtue. We were, of course, amateurs. What else. The word “amateur” in English sport is a complicated piece of moral furniture, rather like the word “volunteer” in the RNVR: it carries the ghost of an older world inside it. One sometimes feels obliged to speak as if amateurism were a form of purity, rather than merely the condition of not being paid. I used to amuse myself, when the mood struck, by saying something like: I may be Grice, but I am not Grace. One ought not to lean too hard on the pun, because W. G. Grace is a proper noun so large it crushes jokes by its mere weight. Also, he was a doctor, which makes the amateur-professional distinction look even more like a category mistake. But the pun still has its place: it announces, quickly, that one is not about to pretend to be a hero of Lord’s while standing in a muddy corner of Oxfordshire with an ageing bat. The Barnacles had their own mythology, including their motto. Victory is sweet, yes, but the full sentiment, as it was sometimes quoted, was that victory was no substitute for personal success. That is a very Oxonian compromise: you are permitted to want to win, provided you are also permitted to claim that something else mattered more. It is the same manoeuvre, in another costume, that philosophers use when they claim they are not arguing to win, only to clarify. We clarified ferociously. The Barnacles’ fixtures were centred, notoriously, on Richmond Green in Surrey. A historic ground, and a rather beautiful one, with cricket played there since at least the seventeenth century. But to get there from Oxford requires what one might call a commitment to the idea of cricket that borders on the metaphysical. It is quite a commute, and I remember thinking, more than once, that there is something faintly indecent about travelling that far for a match and then claiming, afterwards, that you were merely “playing a game.” Still, we went, and we preserved the tradition of wandering academic matches, the faintly comic town-and-gown echo, with future Vice-Chancellors and ambassadors behaving like boys because the ball had been bowled. After the war I became, as people say, a stalwart. That phrase always makes me picture a post rather than a person. But I did become central to the side, and the leadership I provided was later described, with some justice, as despotic. Cricket tempts a man to despotism because the smallest tactical decisions feel like moral judgments. Set the field wrong and you have not merely made an error; you have betrayed a theory of the batsman. Then came 1957 and a shift of emphasis. The Demijohns were conceived as an alumni club for St John’s, and my playing for the College side that season became, in effect, the catalyst for making the Demijohns a formal club rather than a notion. It is one of Oxford’s habits that the things it cares about begin as informal arrangements and then acquire committees once everyone has agreed they matter. The move from Barnacles to Demijohns was not a repudiation of one and an embrace of the other; it was the reorientation of the same appetite toward a club that was, in its way, more local and therefore more plausibly attached to daily life. People sometimes repeat, with a kind of relish, that I was an “extremely effective and prolific” opening batsman. The sentence is flattering, and it also sounds like a description of a factory. But it catches something true about opening: it is a position in which one must begin, before one can possibly know what sort of day it will be. There is a philosophical lesson there, if one insists on seeing it. The opener has to commit himself under uncertainty, which is precisely what philosophers like to pretend they never do. My love of the game, if I am honest, did not come from Harborne. My mother’s Sandown, her private school, her rather purposeful domestic empire, and my father’s music, did not encourage cricket in the way Clifton did. Cricket at Clifton arrived at exactly the psychologically suitable moment, if one wants to be grand about it: the age at which a boy discovers that his limbs have intentions of their own and can be trained into something that looks like competence. I remember being mildly surprised, later, by how early children could play with real seriousness, as if the game had always been waiting in them for the chance to emerge. Cricket also taught me something that later turned out to matter for philosophy: the way rules and practices interlock. A game can have written laws and still depend, for its reality, on a body of shared understanding that is not written down. That is why an American arriving with baseball in his head can be “taught” cricket only by being initiated into a practice, not merely handed a rulebook. Morton White, arriving at Oxford from Harvard, knowing baseball, needed precisely that sort of initiation; and I confess I enjoyed, perhaps too much, educating him into what counted as cricket and what did not. There is always a temptation, for an Oxford philosopher, to treat any such task as conceptual analysis with grass and pads. This is where Austin’s habits overlapped with mine, though we differed about almost everything else. He had his “linguistic botany,” his way of asking, over lunch and as if it were nothing, what the difference was between playing cricket well, playing cricket properly, playing cricket correctly, not playing cricket, barely playing cricket. It is a small taxonomy, but it reveals the deeper point: the English use of “cricket” is not just about sport; it is also about propriety. That’s no cricket, as the proverb goes, is not a report about bats and balls at all. It is an accusation that someone has violated the expectations that make a cooperative practice possible. If you want to force it into my later vocabulary, you can say it is an allegation that the other party has stopped being an “honest chap,” stopped playing by the maxims that keep the enterprise civil. And yes, there is all that English piety about the game, the thought that cricket makes the Englishman, that it is character in motion. Whether that is true or merely a story we tell to dignify a pastime, I leave open. It is certainly the case that cricket was one of the ways I kept a trio of competitive disciplines alive: cricket, chess, bridge. Each has its own logic, its own timing, its own form of nerve. Cricket’s nerve is public and slow. Chess’s nerve is silent and merciless. Bridge’s nerve is cooperative and coded. Between them, they kept me from becoming the sort of philosopher who believes thought occurs only at a desk. A special accommodation: the last day as a resident fellow My last day as a resident fellow had the odd air of a minor abdication. One does not, in Oxford, resign a room in the way one resigns an office. One gives it up as one gives up a habit. Yet the room had been, for years, not merely somewhere I slept, but a small institutional accommodation of a certain kind of life: the fellow sleeping, the tutor sleeping, as if the teaching itself required that one’s body be stored on the premises. It has, as you say, a medieval ring to it, and not only because of stone and staircases. It belongs to that old masculine understanding, half pact and half presupposition, that the college is built for bachelors and that wives must be placed elsewhere, outside the walls, like a new jurisdiction. I had been appointed Lecturer at St John’s in 1938, and elected to a full fellowship and tutorship in 1939. In those years, to be unmarried and to live in College was not merely permitted; it was the standard arrangement. One rose, one crossed a quad, one found one’s pupils, and the day began as if it were designed to keep thinking in motion. Even my mother’s preference for the French in domestic matters found its way into this, because I had been trained to say déjeuner, and not break-fast, which always struck her as a vulgar term, too bodily, too direct, as if one were proud of having been hungry. So one would go to breakfast, of course, and perhaps one would even say breakfast among friends; but in my head the day still began with déjeuner, as if a modest French word could civilise an English appetite. I remember the convenience of it with a kind of mild disbelief. You wake in a room owned by the College, in a bed that belongs to the institution in the same way as the chair and the table belong to it, and within minutes you are in the stream of Oxford life. Cross the quad, and there is a pupil waiting with a thesis, or a provocation, or simply the fear of being found out. One has no commute, and therefore no excuse, which is probably why the arrangement suited Oxford: it removed the intermediate space in which one might have grown human. Some of the people one met, in that close way, were themselves resident. Flew, for instance, with his eagerness to turn every question into a punch and every punch into a conclusion. Strawson too, who had, even then, the air of a man who would one day systematise the ordinary and then defend it as if it were under attack. It is easy to forget how much of philosophical temperament shows itself not in papers but in breakfast-room talk. There was one morning, or a cluster of mornings compressed into one by memory, when we were all, for some reason, discussing a noise from the night before. One of those sounds that Oxford produces occasionally, to remind you that it is still a town and not merely a set of quads and syllabuses. Someone had heard what was described, with the seriousness of the young, as a big bang. Flew, naturally, tried at once to turn it into evidence for something. I made a joke in poor taste about the Martyrs’ Memorial outside St Giles, as if the statues had finally grown tired of their pedestal and decided to wake up and make a point. Strawson, in his way, said he had thought it was a Boojum, which is exactly the sort of thing he would say: a way of refusing the ordinary explanation without committing himself to a better one. Flew then remarked, with the tone of someone filing an objection, that anything not easily categorisable was a Boojum for Strawson. This struck me as almost right, and also as the sort of remark that proves the point it makes: the impulse to classify, to treat the unplaced as a special case rather than as a nuisance. It is this life, this collegiate intimacy of voice and footstep, that one gives up when one ceases to be resident. And I did cease, because in 1942 I married Kathleen Watson, and marriage, in Oxford, is the moment at which the College’s benevolence becomes spatial. You are no longer stored on the premises. Your domestic life shifts, officially and materially, outside the walls. The phrase outside the college walls has always amused me, because it suggests that the walls are a metaphysical boundary and not merely masonry. But the boundary is real enough in its social effects. One moves, as Alexander Belsyre once moved for different reasons, into a life that is still collegiate in its permissions and ownership, but no longer collegiate in its nightly discipline. So the last day had a peculiar double feeling. Relief, because the resident arrangement, however convenient, carries with it a faint air of being perpetually on duty. And displacement, because one is leaving a form of life that has been taken, until that moment, as the natural one. I remember looking at the room, not sentimentally, but with the practical attention one gives to a place one is about to vacate: the bed, the desk, the chair, the window, the familiar corners where books accumulate as if by intention. One does not say goodbye to a room in Oxford. One merely stops being there. But the room has, in its quiet way, trained you: not only how to sleep under institutional supervision, but how to live in a world where conversation begins before you have properly left your staircase. After that, the rhythms change. One is still a fellow and a tutor, but one is no longer a fellow sleeping. One has acquired a private home, and with it a different sort of punctuality. One is still in Oxford; one is merely at a slight distance, as if the College has moved you from the centre of its grammar into a subordinate clause. A free life Michaelmas Term, Corpus Oxford has always prided itself on an avowed dislike of discipline, and as a young man I found that dislike unusually congenial. I did not have “mandatory classes” in the modern sense, or way, of a rigid professor-led timetable that holds you by the elbow and marches you from room to room. One was required to do Literae Humaniores, of course, and the requirements were real enough; but they were requirements of reading, writing, and turning up to the one thing Oxford could not pretend was optional: the tutorial. For the first two years, the phase we called Moderations, the centre of gravity was Greek and Latin language and literature. There were lectures, and one was certainly expected, as a scholar, to attend the ones relevant to the papers; but “expected” in Oxford is a soft word, which means that if you did not attend, you had better produce the sort of essay that makes people stop asking whether you attended. My real appointments were with a text and with a tutor. In those days the College had classical scholars whose names were not mere names to us. Clark, for instance, the Corpus Christi Professor of Latin during my first years, represented the stern, grammatical side of the education: the sense that one cannot talk about “meaning” until one has learned what a case-ending does. Then later, in my final year at Corpus, Eduard Fraenkel arrived, and his presence was massive. “Massive” is a word I use with caution, but it is the only one that fits. He made Classics feel, not like a school subject, but like an intellectual weather system. When one moved from Mods into Greats, the curriculum shifted in the obvious way: less pure language-and-literature drill, more ancient history and philosophy. It is at this point that people who have not been through it begin to imagine that Oxford suddenly becomes “philosophical” in a modern sense. In fact, it remains classical in its bones; it simply turns out that once you have been trained to take a sentence apart, you are then invited to take an argument apart, which is a natural cruelty. Hardie was my primary philosophy tutor, and I have always thought myself fortunate in that. I say so without ceremony because it is one of the few purely lucky facts in an intellectual life: who happens to teach you at the moment you are teachable. But I was not taught by Hardie alone. On the historical side of Greats, I had instruction from Lepper, an Ancient History tutor at Corpus who supervised that side of the degree. That division of labour was itself a lesson. One learns that “philosophy” is not a free-floating cloud; it is tethered to what people actually did, believed, legislated, fought over, and wrote down in ways that were not intended to amuse modern dons. The central mechanism of the whole business, the thing that made it feel like a free life, was the tutorial system. A tutorial is the one place where Oxford’s dislike of discipline becomes, paradoxically, a form of discipline. You can avoid lectures, you can pretend you have been “reading around,” you can cultivate the illusion of self-direction. But you cannot avoid a tutor who expects an essay, expects you to read it, and expects you to defend it. The freedom is real, but it is freedom under weekly judgment. Sometimes those tutorials were one-on-one; sometimes they were in pairs, and the pair-work had its own peculiar comedy. I remember, in particular, the tutorials with Shropshire, because in the pair arrangement one often ended up defending the other man’s essay and then watching him defend yours, which produced a sort of intellectual ventriloquism. Hardie, of course, encouraged this lunacy, because it made one do what matters: not merely announce a view, but test it in opposition. Shropshire once produced, with the confidence of a man who has read one too many arguments for immortality, the thesis that the immortality of the soul could be “proved” by the case of a chicken running for half an hour after its head had been severed. It was wonderfully wrong in the way undergraduate metaphysics is wrong: energetically, inventively, and with a certain moral boldness. Hardie, instead of crushing it at once, made us work with it. I remember finding myself, to my own surprise, defending the chicken, not because I believed in it, but because the exercise revealed something I would later care about more than chickens: the difference between evidence, explanation, and mere rhetorical insistence. The lectures, meanwhile, hovered in the background as optional aids, especially for the Final Honour School. One went to lectures on Aristotle and Plato because one would be examined on Aristotle and Plato, and because it is part of the Oxford bargain that you will not be spoon-fed but you will be supplied with spoons. Still, the feeling remained that lectures were accessories and tutorials were the engine. You could, with enough nerve and enough reading, live largely by your own arrangements and then submit yourself, once a week, to the small ordeal of a tutor’s attention. That is why I call it a free life: not because it lacked demands, but because the demands were of the sort that did not require one to be marched. If I sound as if I am praising Oxford, I am not doing so without irony. This “free life” had its own coercions: the tyranny of weekly performance, the unspoken competition among scholars, the way one learns to treat one’s own mind as a tool that must deliver on schedule. But it did have one genuine grace. It trained you early to think in conversation: to write for an audience of one or two, to anticipate objections, to distinguish what you have actually said from what you have merely allowed your reader to infer. If I later became preoccupied with how people get from what is said to what is meant, it was not because I had been locked in a seminar room. It was because I had been made, once a week, to sit down opposite a tutor and discover that the life of the mind in Oxford is not principally a life of lectures; it is a life of having to answer. The Grice–Thomson seminars: a farewell at the station, 1963 I remember the day I said goodbye to Thomson at the station because the station is one of the few Oxford places that will not pretend it is timeless. Colleges have the talent of making departures look like minor variations on dinner; a railway platform insists on the vulgar truth that someone is leaving, that he will not be at High Table next week, and that whatever one meant to say must either be said now or be left to implication, which is generally what Oxford prefers. It was 1963, and he was leaving his permanent position. He had been at Oxford since 1956, which made him, in the old Austinian chronology, a late-comer to the play group. He arrived after some of the noisier inventions had already acquired the status of tradition. But he was not late to the work. He had the right combination of seriousness and impatience: the ability to take an argument as an argument, and the refusal to let it hide inside a slogan. We had run joint seminars, he and I, on the philosophy of action, and sometimes, by extension, on what one might call philosophical psychology. I always preferred that phrase to the more fashionable label philosophy of mind, because philosophy of mind sounds as if the mind were a thing, a locale, a museum-piece one might tour. Action, by contrast, drags you back to what people actually do, to the grammar of verbs, and to the fact that a rational creature is one whose doings can be asked for and defended. Pears overlapped with this too. There was a certain practical economy in the arrangement: by concentrating on action and on the psychology implicit in action, we managed to avoid being sucked into the grand, foggy debates that gather around mind as if mind were a public monument. We stayed close to the verbs. We stayed close, in particular, to the sorts of verbs that make trouble because they look innocent. Try became our small obsession for a term. Not because the English language needs more attention from Oxford philosophers, but because try sits exactly where responsibility sits: between intention and accomplishment, between what one meant to bring about and what, in the world, actually happened. It is also the verb that makes moral language tolerable. A man can fail and still deserve credit if he tried. A man can succeed and still be criticised if he succeeded without trying, that is, if he succeeded by accident. Try is a moral hinge disguised as a commonplace. I had been playing, in those years, with the formulation of what I later called maxims, though I did not yet talk as if I were legislating etiquette for the world. One of the formulations, as Thomson liked to needle me about, was my habit of putting a certain exhortation in the form: try to make your contribution one that is true. It has the air of decency rather than the air of logic. It is not “do not lie” dressed up. It is a different creature. Thomson’s objection, delivered with that quiet aggressiveness of his, was always the same shape. Isn’t that just a verbose way of saying do not say what you believe to be false. Isn’t the latter entailed by the former. In which case, why not keep the thing clean. And I would answer, as I did that day at the station, that there is no entailment at all. Not because I wanted to be perverse, though I admit perversion has its pleasures, but because the difference matters. Try is not an operator that forces a conclusion; it is an imperative, and an imperative is a demand on character, not a description of logical space. One can be ordered to avoid procrastination; one cannot be ordered to conjoin veracity with omniscience. Try acknowledges that men are finite, inattentive, hurried, and often incompetent; it asks for effort in the direction of truth, not for an impossible guarantee. Thomson would grin at that and say something like: so you are making room for error while keeping the moral sting. Exactly. I am trying to describe what an honest chap does, not to define truthfulness as if it were a theorem. The moral demand is real, but it is not the demand that one never be wrong. It is the demand that one not treat being right as optional. We used to stage the point in seminar with the sort of examples that make undergraduates laugh and then, if you are lucky, make them uneasy. A man says the meeting is on Tuesday when it is in fact on Wednesday. Has he violated anything. If he had checked his diary, he would have got it right. If he merely guessed, he has done something culpable. Try, in the relevant sense, is the difference between the mistake that is merely human and the mistake that is negligent. So when he left, I found myself thinking that our seminars had been, among other things, a way of keeping philosophy tethered. We had not been inventing a theory of mind out of whole cloth. We had been looking at the place where a person’s words commit him, where intention meets performance, where excuses begin, and where responsibility ends. On the platform we did the normal Oxford thing: we did not say much. We spoke of practicalities. What train. What connection. Whether he had time for tea. The ordinary apparatus by which men avoid sentiment without abolishing it. But the talk had its own implicature: that we had enjoyed the work, that we had taken one another seriously, and that Oxford would feel slightly less argumentative without him. Just before he stepped into the carriage he said, half as a joke and half as a provocation, that I ought to admit that my try-maxim was really just Kant in a softer hat. I told him, as the guard began to look irritated, that Kant gives you imperatives without mercy, whereas try is what you say when you still want people to speak to you afterwards. Then the train moved, and Thomson became, in the unromantic way trains manage it, smaller, and then absent. It is an odd thing, seeing someone go whom you have spent weeks quarrelling with in public. A joint seminar is a kind of licensed intimacy: you disagree under rules, you discover exactly where the other man will refuse to budge, and you learn to value the refusal. When he was gone, I felt, briefly, as if Oxford had lost not a colleague, but a certain kind of resistance, the sort that keeps one honest. A little chess Chess, for me, belonged to the same private province as the piano: a serious engagement, lifelong, disciplined, and yet conducted without the public apparatus that Oxford likes to wrap round its enthusiasms. I do not mean that I played badly. On the contrary, people who knew had the kindness, or the irritation, to say that I played at a very high level of accomplishment. But there is, in Oxford, a difference between being good at something and being seen to be good at it. My competitive energy, when I wanted witnesses, went into cricket and bridge. Those games have their proper circles, their fixtures, their county-level affiliations, their polite theatres of display. Chess, by contrast, I kept largely out of clubs, out of competitions, and out of the sort of record that later becomes “evidence.” This has sometimes puzzled people. They assume that if a man plays well he must wish to test himself formally. But chess is already formal enough. It does not need a committee to make it serious. Indeed one of its pleasures is that it can be played in the Senior Common Room at St John’s with no more ceremony than a pot of tea and the quiet agreement that, for the next hour or two, the world may be postponed. I remember, particularly, long games with George Richardson in the SCR. They were long not because we were slow, though we were, but because neither of us liked a move made merely to keep the hand busy. In cricket you must sometimes play defensively in order to survive; in chess, “defence” can become a kind of moral posture, a refusal to offer anything cheaply. Richardson had that posture. I admired it and I also wanted to break it, which is the correct combination for an enjoyable opponent. There is a peculiar honesty in chess that suits a philosopher. In conversation one can retreat into tone, insinuation, a convenient vagueness; in chess there is nothing to hide behind except the position, and the position does not flatter you. If you have overlooked something, the board will not allow you to say that you meant something else. One can, of course, make a speculative move, a sacrifice, a feint; but one must pay for it in the same currency in which one spends. It is not like academic life, where people sometimes finance their errors with reputations. I think that is why chess appealed to me in the same way the piano did. Both demand a kind of sustained attention, a willingness to stay with a line longer than is comfortable, and a tolerance for the fact that the best outcome is often not an outcome at all but a kind of correctness. With the piano, correctness is not enough, but it is the foundation. With chess, correctness is almost the whole of it; style comes only after you have stopped blundering. I did, of course, steal chess for philosophy whenever I could. I used it in the Yog and Zog paradox, because chess offers a readily intelligible model of a rule-governed practice in which “knowing what to do” and “being able to do it” come apart in illuminating ways. You can know the rules and still be hopeless. You can have the capacity to make legal moves without having the faintest idea how to play. And you can also, more interestingly, play “properly” by some lights and yet not play “well,” which is precisely the sort of distinction Oxford philosophers are trained to enjoy. It also gave me a ready contrast with my more public games. Cricket has weather, temperament, nerves in the open air, and the curious English business of calling an obviously competitive impulse “sportsmanship.” Bridge has partnership, inference, and the discipline of signalling under conventions. Chess is the solitary version of that discipline: inference without an ally, strategy without a partner to rescue you, responsibility without a scapegoat. If one wants a crude slogan, chess is where I went when I wanted to be corrected by something that does not speak. And yet I never wanted it to become my “thing” in the public sense. Oxford is full of men whose hobbies become part of their identity in a way that makes conversation tiresome. I did not want to be that. It was enough that, on some evenings, after Hall, with the board set out in the SCR and Richardson opposite, I could sit down and be reminded, quietly, that there are practices in which what is meant is exactly what is done, and where the only implicature is the one you draw, too late, from your own previous move. The Birmingham firm, and the call I did not, as a boy, think of my father as “from Brum.” One does not, inside a household, use the city as a predicate of one’s parent. He was simply my father; and Birmingham was simply the air one lived in, the colour of the sky when the weather was bad, the steady undertone of industry that made even quiet streets feel as if something were always being made just out of sight. Only later did I acquire the habit of thinking of him in the more sociological way: Herbert Grice, a man of business, with a small manufacturing concern in Birmingham, in that long local tradition of small-ware making, what people sometimes call, with a mixture of pride and condescension, the “toy” trade. Not toys, of course, but the small metal components without which larger machines are merely aspirations: screws, buckles, fittings, tiny bits of hardware that allow something grand to hold together. If Oxford has a taste for system, Birmingham has a taste for parts; and I came to think that my own later obsession with the small mechanisms of conversation was, in an unromantic sense, a continuation of my father’s world by other means. His firm specialised in precision rather than weight. He did not cast great iron shapes. He dealt in small-scale components for engineering and industrial use, things made to fit, things that do their work by being exact. The business prospered during the Great War. That is a phrase I learned to handle with caution, because “prosperity” in wartime has a moral aftertaste. But the fact is plain enough: military contracts, the demand for precision parts, the vast appetite of munitions and machinery, made Birmingham hum, and made certain small firms, my father’s among them, thrive. Then came the post-war slump, the collapse of demand, the narrowing of contracts, the abrupt shift from necessity to peacetime parsimony. His business struggled and failed. I do not say this with melodrama. Failure in business, like failure in argument, is often a slow thing punctuated by sudden moments: a customer lost, an order cancelled, a bill that arrives as if it were a verdict. I grew up, in other words, with an early sense that the world can change without asking one’s permission, and that respectability is a fragile arrangement sustained by invoices. What stayed with me, and what I only understood fully when I grew older, was the combination in my father of industriousness and a certain helplessness before “the market,” that abstraction which behaves like fate while pretending to be merely arithmetic. He made good things, precise things, small things that mattered. And then the demand for them vanished. If one wants a philosophical moral, it is there: the world is not obliged to reward competence. I was at Oxford when my father died. I believe it was 1935. The mode of learning the fact was itself a lesson in how news travels through different worlds. Oxford likes letters, notices, memorial services timed to term. Birmingham does not. Birmingham rings. The telephone call came from Mother. She had, even then, the schoolmistress’s talent for making a sentence do a great deal of work without fuss. She did not begin with preliminaries. She did not provide a narrative. She simply told me what had happened, as one tells a fact one must tell. And then, after the bare statement, came the peculiar silence that follows a death when the speaker is too practical to indulge grief theatrically, and the listener is too far away to do anything but listen. I remember thinking, absurdly, that I ought to say something intelligent, or at least something correct. But correctness is a poor instrument for filial loss. What I actually said was probably banal, perhaps even clumsy. One does not, at twenty-something, possess the right words for the death of one’s father; and besides, my mother would have distrusted “the right words” in this context, as if rhetoric were a form of evasion. What struck me afterwards, walking back through Oxford, was the contrast between the solidity of College stone and the fragility of the life that had produced me. Oxford trains you to treat the mind as if it were self-subsisting, as if one’s education floated above one’s origins. Yet my education had been paid for, in part, by a Birmingham business that made small metal parts, by a prosperity that arrived because of the Great War, and by a collapse that followed because the peace did not require those parts in the same quantities. My father’s life was not an ornament to mine; it was the condition of it. If I allow myself a little salt, it is this. Oxford men like to imagine that commerce is vulgar and thought is pure. But the purest thought I have ever encountered still depends on somebody, somewhere, making the screws. If you want to pin down the “actual suburb” of Birmingham for Herbert Grice beyond “Brum,” tell me what you already have (you’ve mentioned Edgbaston and Harborne in your other material), and I will keep the narration consistent with those addresses while keeping uncertainty as uncertainty. Harborne, before Clifton I grew up with the sense that Birmingham did not consist of one Birmingham, but of several, laid side by side, each with its own air of certainty. A street could be only a street, and yet it could also be an argument about status. I learned this not by being taught it, but by hearing it, in the way one hears the weather. We were in Harborne by the time I could properly notice such things, in that detached villa at the beginning of Lordswood Road, with the name Sandown—my mother’s little act of nomination, a seaside word transplanted inland, as if a syllable could provide the light that Birmingham’s sky occasionally withheld. The house had the sort of garden that makes a child feel, wrongly, that the family owns the world in all directions. I did not then think of it as “affluent”; I thought of it as simply there, like a fact of nature. Only later did I understand that such a house, detached, with space around it, was itself a kind of conclusion someone had drawn, and paid for. But before Harborne, I have always thought there had been Edgbaston. I say “thought” because family geography is rarely preserved with the care of an archivist. It is preserved as talk, as a handful of names repeated with a confidence that exceeds their evidential basis. And then, just to make the child’s mind properly restless, someone later tells you it was “Kings—something,” and you are left to decide whether you are being offered a correction or merely another variety of the same family mythology. If it was Edgbaston, then the difference was real enough. Edgbaston had, in my young imagination, the air of a Birmingham that was trying not to be Birmingham: broader roads, more trees, a manner of quiet that suggests money without having to mention it. Harborne, by contrast, was not inferior, but it was different: less of the grand self-conscious suburb, more of a place where people were, so to speak, actually living rather than merely residing. My father, who could be reserved to a fault, would sometimes mention this difference as one mentions, reluctantly, that one has noticed a thing at all. I remember an evening when I must have been still small enough to be permitted to hover, but old enough to ask questions that annoyed. We were walking—my mother, my father, myself, and in the background the household chorus: Aunt Matilda, who had that extra note of presence an aunt can have, and my younger brother Derek, who had the advantage of being younger and therefore allowed to interrupt without having to justify it. My mother, Mabel, would have been brisk, not unkind, but always with the schoolmistress’s sense that a child’s curiosity is something to be managed rather than indulged. “Why is it different over there?” I asked, pointing in some vague direction that I could not possibly have mapped. My father did not answer at once. He had that Birmingham caution about speaking too plainly of money, as if money might overhear and take offence. But he did answer, eventually, and when he did it was with an unexpected directness. “Edgbaston is different,” he said, as if pronouncing a name were itself sufficient explanation. “And why,” I persisted, “is it different?” My mother, impatient with metaphysics at street level, said something about trees, about bigger gardens, about the fact that some people like quiet. My father, who normally let my mother do the explaining, surprised me by adding, “It’s not just the gardens. It’s who thinks they live there.” That was as far as he would go, and it was far enough. It is an extraordinarily compact piece of sociology for a man of his type, and it stuck with me because it does not merely describe a suburb; it describes the self-description that comes with it. A place is not only a place. It is also the story people tell about themselves by living there. Aunt Matilda, hearing this, said something that sounded to me then like a joke and later like a warning: “Different stamps,” she said, with a little sniff, as if the post itself were part of the moral order. My brother Derek, delighted by anything that made adults look silly, immediately seized on “different postcodes” as if it were a magic phrase, even though in those days the modern fetish for postcodes had not yet taken hold of the national imagination. Still, the idea was clear enough even without the alphanumerics: the mail knows where you are, and it treats you accordingly. In truth, the move to Lordswood Road cannot be explained by the Great War, because it was before it. I was born in March 1913 at that address, which means that whatever prosperity or confidence was involved in the villa came from earlier success, earlier expectation, the firm doing well enough already for my parents to behave as if they had earned a little space and air. The war later may have swollen the business, and the slump later may have ruined it; but the decision to live at Sandown was made in that peculiar pre-war moment when middle-class ambition still sounded, to itself, like stability. I have always disliked the expression “the cream of the crop,” partly because it turns human arrangements into dairy, and partly because it implies that one’s position is a natural secretion rather than a social construction. But it is true that Lordswood Road, and the villa, and the garden, were the epitome of what a certain kind of Birmingham family could aim at: comfortable, respectable, and very far indeed from the manorial fantasy my mother might have read about and then dismissed as vulgar. We were not landed; we were not aristocratic; we were, if one insists on such labels, middle class, in the sense that we had education, industry, and the continuing fear of losing both. My father’s business was not the romance of iron and smoke; it was the more exacting, and less visible, business of small metal components, the sort of work that requires precision and is rewarded, when it is rewarded, by contracts no one sees. My mother taught, and then later ran her own little educational enterprise in the house. Between them, they manufactured two things: parts and pupils. Both are forms of precision, and both depend, in the end, on other people’s demands. When I later lived in Oxford, at Belsyre, I sometimes thought of Sandown, not with nostalgia, but with a kind of astonishment at the domestic geometry. Sandown had garden everywhere, as if the house were a point and the greenery were an argument spread around it. Belsyre had an inner court, a managed inwardness, and beyond it the University Parks, which served, conveniently, as somebody else’s garden. One could take the children there and say, in that Oxford way, that the space is practically ours, provided we mind the cars. Automobiles, my grandmother would have called them, as if a longer word could slow them down. This, I think, is the honest moral of it. One’s childhood persuades one that a detached house with a garden is normal. One’s adulthood teaches one that it was contingent: a moment in the family’s fortune, a brief success in a longer argument with the world. And Birmingham, with its Edgbaston and its Harborne and its Kings-whatever-it-was, taught me early what Oxford later confirmed in a different register: that people live not only in places, but in the implications of places, and that the implications are often what do the real work. Tomorrow is the grand day Tomorrow is the grand day, Father said, which in our household was already a form of promise, because Father did not speak like that unless he meant to produce an effect. He was not, by temperament, a man of announcements. When my mother announced, it was because an announcement was part of the curriculum of the house; when my father announced, it was because he had decided—quietly, earlier—that the thing would be done, and that we children were to be carried along with it. He had taken the trouble to be cheerful at supper without making a point of it, which was, for him, the nearest approach to exuberance. Derek, who was then about seven and full of questions that were not so much questions as interruptions, immediately asked, Grand? Like Grandmother? and Father replied, Not that sort of grand, which, as far as Derek was concerned, answered nothing at all and therefore encouraged him to continue. Mother listened with that particular look she had when she suspected that Father was about to do something improvised. Improvisation was, in her eyes, a vice—unless it was musical, in which case it was a virtue. Still, she did not object. Instead she began, at once, to prepare, and preparation in Mother’s hands meant a basket. I did not yet understand that the basket was her way of making an excursion respectable: an outing becomes, by the mere presence of sandwiches wrapped properly, not a wandering but an expedition. The day has arrived We left after church. That is to say, after the social ritual that made the day feel licensed. Father would not have described it so, but I was already learning that English life is full of permissions one never states, and that one’s best clue to what is permitted is what people do immediately after they have been seen doing something proper. Mother stood at the door of Sandown—our villa with its seaside name stranded in Harborne—and watched us in the way mothers watch two small boys as if they were embarking for the Cape. She adjusted Derek’s collar with the brisk tenderness of someone correcting a pupil, handed Father the basket as if handing over responsibility itself, and said, Mind the roads. Mind the cars, she added, and then, as if she felt the word too short for the threat it named, corrected herself: the automobiles. That was her way. She liked her nouns to be full-sized, as if length were a form of safety. Father said, We shall, which, in his mouth, did not mean that we shall in the manner of a promise; it meant, more practically, that he had heard her and intended to proceed as he had already decided. The implicature, which I did not yet have the vocabulary for but which I nevertheless recovered, was: we shall mind them just enough to satisfy you, and not enough to spoil the day. We set off from Lordswood Road, Derek in front for a moment until Father touched his shoulder—not harshly, merely placing a hand there as a governor—and brought him back into line. There were rules to walking with Father. The first was that you walked at his pace, which was neither hurried nor slow but persistent, as if the body had been designed for getting somewhere and the mind for thinking on the way. The second was that you did not run unless you had been told to run, and you were almost never told to run. Our destination, Father said, was Kings Heath. Derek said, Which King? Father said, A king, and did not elaborate, which was his standard method for dealing with questions that were meant to be jokes. Derek persisted, because persistence is a form of genius in the young. Was it King George? Is it where he goes when he’s tired? Father said, It’s called Kings Heath because it’s called Kings Heath, and I could hear, even then, the mild irritation that arrived when a child demanded that a name behave like a definition. But I was curious too, though more quietly. Kings Heath had been mentioned in the family as “where Father came from,” or “where we were before,” or “that side,” and these phrases, by their vagueness, made it irresistible. It suggested an earlier life of Father’s, a previous Birmingham, a Birmingham behind our Birmingham. Father was from Brum, yes; but Brum in his mouth was never a single place. There were districts, and there were movements between districts, and those movements had meanings one did not declare. As we walked, I asked—carefully, because I was learning when a question would be answered and when it would merely be endured—whether Kings Heath was like Edgbaston. Father did not answer at once. We passed a corner where the air changed slightly, as if the houses had made a collective decision about their own respectability. He glanced in the direction of Edgbaston, though “direction” in Birmingham is not a compass matter but a social one, and said, Edgbaston is different. Different how, Derek demanded, delighted that I had asked something and could now be blamed for it. Father said, Different in the way a place is different when people think it is different. This was one of Father’s rare philosophical moments, and it pleased me so much that I almost missed its sting. He was not praising Edgbaston; he was describing it as a kind of collective self-advertisement. I began, then, to notice the difference he meant. Edgbaston, when you approached it, seemed to have more space and less hurry. Kings Heath—when, later, we neared it—had a busier air, not worse, but less self-conscious. I did not have the vocabulary of class at nine, but I had the beginnings of the sense that place is never merely place. We walked on. Mother’s basket thumped softly against Father’s leg as he carried it, a steady reminder that we were not merely wandering but provisioned. Derek began, after a while, to ask about the fish. What fish are we catching? Father said, Fish. What kind? Father said, The kind that will be foolish enough to take what we offer it. That, again, was Father: refusing to make a plan explicit while still implying that he had one. I recovered, from his tone, that the fish was not the point; the point was to be out, to walk, to make a day of it without having to say so. We were not, as Derek seemed to imagine, going to the Avon. Children will attach themselves to famous names, and the Avon has that sort of fame, partly because of Shakespeare and partly because it sounds like a river in a story. But Birmingham’s water is not Shakespearean; it is practical. We found, in Kings Heath, a small stream, a rivulet, and Father treated it as if it were enough. One does not need the Avon to fish, he said, which meant: you do not need grandeur in order to do a thing properly. He had, in his pocket, a tin with hooks and line, and in another pocket, folded paper and string, and Derek asked, Where’s the rod? and Father said, We’re not in a catalogue, which I took to be a joke about Mother’s taste for ordering things properly and Father’s taste for making do. We found a spot where the bank allowed a boy to crouch without sliding in, and Father produced worms. Derek recoiled theatrically, because at seven the body is an instrument for expressing disgust. Worms are for birds, he said, which was both true and irrelevant. Father said, Worms are for fish, too. I asked, Do they bite? Father said, Fish bite. Worms are bitten. We are the intermediary. This line struck me as important, though I could not yet say why. It has, in it, the beginnings of a lesson about agency that later philosophy merely makes complicated. The worm does not mean to attract the fish; the fish does not mean to be caught; Father means to catch; we boys mean to assist; and the whole business works only because the fish recovers, from what is presented, a conclusion it wants: that there is food. It is a small system of intentions and misintentions, and I was, without knowing it, being trained. Father set about threading the worm with a seriousness that made the thing seem, for a moment, surgical. Derek watched, fascinated and horrified, and kept asking questions that were really demands for reassurance. Does it hurt the worm? Father said, It isn’t enjoying it. Is that a yes? Father said, Derek, and there it was: his way of ending a line of inquiry without having to argue. We cast our lines into the water—“cast” is the grand word for what we did, which was to drop bait into a stream and then stare at it as if staring were an active contribution. Father made us sit, and sitting still was, for Derek, an athletic trial. He began to narrate the water as if it were obliged to entertain him. There’s nothing happening, he said. Father said, That is happening. I remember looking at Father then and thinking that he meant more than he was saying. He meant that patience is itself a practice. He meant that if you are unable to sit still, you are unable to do certain things in life, and that those things—fishing, thinking, waiting for business to recover, waiting for a contract—are not optional. After a time, my float moved. It was a small movement, perhaps only the stream teasing me, but Father leaned in and said, Wait, which meant: do not act on the first sign; let the thing commit itself. Derek, unable to bear suspense, shouted, Pull! and Father said, Quiet, as if “quiet” were not a moral demand but a practical one. Then the tug came, unmistakable, and Father said, Now, and I pulled, and for a moment there was resistance and then a small flash of life in the water, and then a fish lay on the bank, flicking, astonished by the air. It was not a grand fish. It was, to my childhood eye, a triumph. A small silver thing, perhaps a roach, perhaps something similar, and Father named it with the calm authority of someone who does not need to be sure to sound sure. I later learned that naming a fish is not always easy, and that people who fish argue about species with the same zeal that dons argue about categories. But the name did not matter then. What mattered was that the fish existed, that it had come from the water into my world, and that I had done it by following Father’s instructions. Derek immediately wanted to hold it and then immediately did not want to hold it. It’s slimy, he complained, which was, in effect, a philosophical objection to the world’s refusal to be tidy. Father said, Fish are fish. Derek asked, Can we take it home? Father looked at the fish and then at the basket. Mother will love that, he said, and in the dryness of his voice I heard the implicature: your mother will not love that, and you know she will not love that, and I am inviting you to notice this without making me say it. We returned the fish to the water, and Father did it in a way that made it seem not like surrender but like decency. He was, for all his reserve, not cruel. He liked to win, but he liked to win under rules that were partly his and partly inherited. We ate then, because the basket demanded it. Mother had prepared sandwiches with the care of a woman who believed that hunger should be met by well-made things. Tuna, perhaps, or something similar, wrapped properly, with an apple each, and a small bottle of something to drink. Derek ate and talked at the same time, which alarmed Father in a way that only half appeared as fatherly concern. He said, Don’t choke, which meant: do not ruin the outing by creating a crisis. I asked Father, when we were eating, whether Kings Heath was where he had lived. He said, Once, yes. Was it better than Harborne? He paused, and in that pause he did what he often did: he allowed silence to do the work of preventing a false comparison. Then he said, It was different. Different how? Different in the way that a place is different when you have less, he said, and then, as if he regretted having said even that much, added, Eat your sandwich. It was, for him, quite a confession. It implied that Harborne—Lordswood Road, Sandown, the garden—was the product of having more. It implied, too, that “more” can be temporary, and that one ought not to build one’s confidence on it. I recovered these implications later, when the world taught them with less gentleness. On the walk back, Derek began to complain about his boots. He had collected, in his wellingtons, what children always collect: sand, mud, the contents of the world. Each step made a small wet sound, as if the day had acquired a percussion accompaniment. Father said, Take it out when we get home. Take what out? All of it, Father said. Every grain. Your mother will know if you don’t. This, again, was Father mocking Mother without challenging her. He treated her standards as inevitable and therefore as a kind of natural law. He did not say, Your mother is fastidious; he said, Your mother will know, which implied: she has a kind of omniscience about dirt, and it is best not to test it. As Sandown came back into view—our detached house, our garden, the feeling of space that a child mistakes for permanence—I felt, oddly, older. Not by a year, but by a day. I had seen Father in his “old country,” Kings Heath, and I had seen him become, for a few hours, less reserved, less purely practical. He had taken us not merely to catch a fish but to give us a piece of his own past without having to narrate it. Mother was at the door, as if she had not moved. She looked first at our hands and then at our boots, because mothers know where evidence appears. Father handed her the basket and said, Good walk, and she said, I should think so, and then, without looking at him, said, Wipe your boots. Father turned to Derek and me and said, You heard her. Derek said, But we did wipe them. Mother said, You wiped them in your head. Father’s mouth moved slightly, which in him was laughter. And in that moment I understood something I have since spent far too long theorising: that much of family life proceeds by implicature, that the uttered sentence is often merely the handle by which one moves the rest, and that the smallest misunderstandings—Derek’s sincere belief that wiping had occurred—are not trivial errors but natural by-products of a system in which people rely on what is understood rather than what is said. 1962 Seminar on Reason: necessity, and the roach  Today’s topic is “necessity.” How many do we need? Potts, who has the disconcerting habit of treating my rhetorical questions as if they were invitations to display arithmetic talent, said, “Five?” and looked pleased with himself, as if he had found the correct number of angels for the head of a pin. I ignored that. One must, in seminars, ignore some things not because they are false but because they are too quickly true. We do not, I said, need to postulate more necessities than are necessary—if that does not kill Ockham, or Occam, as I have sometimes preferred, having once passed by Ockham and finding it looked less like a razor and more like a village. The principle is plain enough: do not multiply entities beyond need. But I have always suspected that people who quote it most loudly have not yet decided what counts as an entity. Still, we can begin with the obvious. A fish needs a gill. It would be perverse to deny it. Yet I do not think we are thereby justified in invoking an ichthyological necessity. At that point I stopped. Potts thought, quite rightly in his own terms, that I had paused in order to recalibrate my next implicature. He began, with that eager half-smile that undergraduates adopt when they anticipate a joke they intend to remember, to lean forward. But I was not recalibrating anything. The phrase ichthyological necessity had brought back, with the indecency of memory, a different scene altogether: not a seminar room but a stream; not an Oxford audience but my father and Derek; not the necessity of the modal logicians but the necessity of bait and patience. It is astonishing how little is required to transport one. One ill-chosen adjective can open a door that has been closed for fifty years. It was a roach. I heard the sentence in my head as if my father had spoken it again, not as a piece of biological classification but as a small act of authority. Derek, of course, had wanted a perch—more dramatic, that—because younger brothers always prefer drama to accuracy. And I could hear my father’s dry concession to Derek’s appetite for names: as long as it’s not stickleback, right, Derek?—the joke being that stickleback sounded, to Derek’s ear, like an insult and therefore like something one ought to avoid. “Sir,” Potts said, bringing me back into the room with an admirable combination of respect and impatience, “you were talking about ichthyological necessity.” Ah, yes. I had, strictly speaking, been talking about not needing them. I did not say this, but I could feel the room waiting for me to say it in the form in which I had begun: we don’t need them. And the trouble is that I did mean we don’t need them, and I also meant—sadly, oh so sadly—we do. For in one sense we do not need to call it “ichthyological necessity” at all. The fish needs the gill; the roach needs water; that is quite enough for any decent person and for most biologists. But the philosopher is not always a decent person. The philosopher is sometimes a man who has noticed that the word “needs” does different work in different mouths, and that if you do not keep the work distinct you end up with metaphysics where you only wanted supper. So I said, as evenly as I could, that we do not need them—meaning: we do not need a new realm of necessities with fish in it, a fresh department of modal facts patrolled by gills. But that we do need, on the other hand, to account for what we are doing when we say “needs” at all: whether we are reporting a requirement of biology, a requirement of convention, a requirement of reason, or a requirement merely of my patience in a seminar. Potts looked disappointed, because my answer did not allow him to keep “Five?” as a foothold. Still, the moment had done its work. It had reminded me, in public, of something I prefer to keep private: that philosophy is rarely an enterprise of pure thought. It is a trade in recollections and habits, in old voices and small scenes, in words that drag their histories behind them. I had used fish as a philosophical example, and the fish had answered back by bringing my father into the room. That, too, is a kind of necessity, though not one any of us will ever succeed in classifying. He was caught in the grip of a vice There are offices at Oxford that make a man feel older, and offices that make him feel ridiculous. Vice-President is of the second sort, though it does not admit it openly. The word is the problem. One cannot be made Vice-President without, for at least one instant, hearing “vice” as vice, pronounced vi-ce, and experiencing the brief moral panic of a man who has always tried to keep his vices private and his virtues unadvertised. It happened in [YEAR], and it lasted one year, which is exactly as long as a College will trust a philosopher with anything that involves menus, ceremonial timing, and other people’s wives. The President at the time was [PRESIDENT’S NAME], and the arrangement was, so to speak, a partnership: he presided; I viced. Vote for Willoughby-Grice, someone said once, to my face, as if we were standing for Parliament rather than arranging the annual feast. I noted, in silence, that this already contains its own irony: one can vote for a President, but the Vice-President is never quite voted for; he is acquired, like a symptom. The position is largely social and administrative. One is responsible for organising and running College events, including the great annual feast, and for emitting, at the right moments, the right phrases. The phrases matter more than the acts. In that year I developed a particular affection for good morning and good evening, because they are useful precisely because they do not commit you to anything beyond the fact that you have noticed someone’s presence. In a College, noticing is half the administration. There is also dress. Vice-presidential work is one of the few Oxford activities in which the intellect is not merely irrelevant but positively in the way. The body is required, the tie is required, and the College expects you to look as if you were born knowing which fork is for what. I was, in that year, more often than I care to remember, decked out in white tie and tails for ceremonies which looked medieval until you noticed the electric light. I did not dislike it, exactly. I disliked, rather, the fact that I did not dislike it. This, too, is a vice: finding oneself comfortable in costume. My professional work, meanwhile, continued with its usual indifference to costume. A philosopher’s work is never done. One tutors Potts; one untutors Potts the next week, by which I mean letting him live with all the mistakes in his paper long enough to see that they are mistakes. A tutor cannot break a heart that will never be mended. Or, more fairly, a tutor cannot mend a heart by breaking it. Yet tutoring requires, daily, the small cruelty of insisting that a clever boy’s cleverness is not yet clarity. And then, on top of that, vice. The grip of the vice, the grip of the vyse. I liked the sound of it, and I did indeed find myself thinking, as I so often do, that disambiguation is always a moral problem disguised as a linguistic one. Vice, in the sense of office, is a supplement: it stands in, it deputises, it substitutes. Vice, in the other sense, is what one does when one is not being watched, or when one is being watched by people who approve. The two senses are not, of course, the same. But Oxford enjoys names that force you to perform the distinction. What made the year genuinely comic was that it coincided with entertaining Quine. The New World had sent us, as it liked to imagine, its most important contribution to philosophy as we know it; and he arrived, with his courteous severity, as if he had come to inspect the logical health of the old country. He does not like a dogma. Indeed he does not like two dogmas, and he had had the bad manners to say so in print, which Americans can do with a cheerfulness that Englishmen reserve for cricket. I confess I do like a dogma. I even like an underdogma, if one must. Dogmas at least have the decency to tell you where they stand. Quine’s talent was to keep moving the furniture while insisting that he was merely doing housekeeping. There is a particular kind of Oxford scene I remember from that period. The day has been spent in the proper work: tutorials, letters, decisions that pretend to be intellectual but are actually logistical. Then comes the ceremonial evening: the feast, the procession of people who want to be acknowledged, the small disasters that must be prevented before they become anecdotes. Somewhere in the midst of this, Quine is introduced, and one has to manage the double task: to make him feel welcomed without making him feel flattered, and to keep him from noticing that most of the evening is not about ideas at all but about sequence, precedence, and being seen in the right place at the right time. He asked me, at one point, whether Oxford took these offices seriously. I answered, truthfully, that Oxford takes everything seriously provided it can do so without saying it is serious. The Vice-Presidency has no point, which I like. A position with no point gives one room to fluctuate, as they say at Cambridge—oops, I meant the other place. Yet it has a function, and Oxford likes functions that are not advertised as such. One is to keep the machinery from grinding. Another is to absorb minor shocks. A third is to allow the President to remain presidential by ensuring that somebody else has handled the petty. And philosophically—since I cannot keep my hands off even this—there is a lesson in what Vice does and does not do to one’s ordinary identity as a Fellow and Tutor. Vice-presidentship never cancels the implicature of tutorial fellow. It does not enhance it either. It simply adds a new layer of what is expected of you, and expectations, as I later came to insist, are where much of meaning lives. A man in white tie says good evening, and the utterance is not merely a greeting; it carries, by convention, a whole apparatus of: I am on duty; you are being welcomed; behave. If one wants a punchline, it is the one Oxford provides automatically. In that year I learned that the administrative life is not the enemy of philosophy; it is its natural habitat, because it is made of talk that must work. One cannot, at the annual feast, indulge in the luxury of saying something obscure and then explaining what one meant. The explanation arrives too late. In College life, as in conversation, you are judged not by the meanings you privately intended, but by the effects you publicly achieved. And so, for one year, I was caught in the grip of a vice, and discovered that it is possible to serve an institution by doing very little, provided one does it at the right time, in the right clothes, with the right words, and with a face that implies—without ever stating—that everything is under control. 1950, or thereabouts: Dummett, and the cruelty of being an examiner I do not know what I am doing there. I mean: I know what I do in tutorials. I know what it is to sit opposite a young man and help him discover, painfully, that his cleverness is not yet clarity. That is an honourable cruelty, because it is done in private and it leaves room for recovery. But examining is different. Examining has the air of public necessity, and I have never been convinced that necessity is a moral excuse. Today it was poor old M. A. E. Dummett, and it was his BPhil viva voce. The very phrase already puts me in a bad temper. Viva voce: living voice. As if the voice were what is being tested, rather than the mind. And why should philosophy be cut short in this way—behind Phil, as it were—when the BA was, for my generation, the real ordeal? Why invent a new kind of finish, and then congratulate ourselves for having made the finish more specialised and therefore, apparently, more serious? I have always distrusted the English appetite for new examinations. It is one of the ways we smuggle discipline into a culture that insists it despises discipline. What makes it worse is the gossip. Dummett is now telling everybody—and every soul, I should add, because the exaggeration seems almost theological—that I spent a significant portion of the exam on a single obscure point of logic. Significant is, in this context, one of those words that means nothing while pretending to mean a lot. It gives the speaker permission to enlarge without having to count. He tells it as if it were a grueling intellectual marathon. An hour-long examination reduced to one point, and that point pressed until it broke. He says it exemplified my impossibly high standards. I suppose a standard has to fly high, unless one is mourning someone and lowering it to half-mast. Banner, standard, flag: all those things are designed to be seen, which is precisely the problem with standards. People think a standard is a decoration. It is not. It is a demand. Still, the story is not entirely false. I did, in fact, read his thesis—at least up to that point. There is a pun there, and I am not proud of enjoying it. But the more relevant point is this: I did not question him on that point in order to catch him out with trivia. I questioned him because it was not trivia. It was the point on which his argument did most of its work while pretending to do none of it. A good thesis always has a place where everything turns on something the author has treated as if it were merely technical. I have a particular way, which students experience as terrifying and which I experience as the only honest method. I do not tell the examinee where the flaw is. I wait. I let him hear himself. I let the silence do what kindness cannot. I have always thought it indecent to correct a man before he has had the chance to correct himself. This is taken as sadism. It is, in my mind, a form of respect. If you can find the flaw, you deserve to keep your dignity; if I supply it, you keep my dignity and lose your own. So yes, I pressed Dummett. I pushed his line until it reached its breaking point—not to break him, but to see whether he could see where it broke. The distinction matters, though students do not believe it does. There is also the Austin complication. Austin never liked Dummett, which is not to say he “disliked” him in any vulgar sense, for Oxford is too civilised to admit dislike as a permissible attitude towards a colleague. But Austin certainly did not invite him to the Saturday mornings. That is how Oxford expresses antipathy: not by hostility, but by omission. I, for my part, did not share Austin’s allergy. Dummett had a mind, and it would have been illegal, immoral, and indecent—especially for a member of Boum Vadum—to deny that one to him merely because his manner irritated the local gods. Still, I can already hear the future. Dummett will later dwell on this viva in an interview—Cogito, perhaps—and he will date it to 1950, and he will describe the experience with the relish of a man retelling a near-death encounter. He will say I spent nearly the entire hour on a single technical point of logic he had raised. He will present himself as having survived something. And I cannot entirely begrudge him the narrative. Philosophy, for the young, is partly a sport of survival. What I do begrudge is the moral he draws: that my standards were impossibly high. They were not impossibly high. They were simply not negotiable. A finished thought is not a thought that has been written down; it is a thought that can withstand pressure without silently changing its shape. Most thoughts fail that test. Mine do too, which is why I do not like examinations: they invite the fiction that “finished” is an attainable status rather than a temporary illusion. Later that week Wrigley of Trinity came to me for advice, full of that hopeful earnestness which is both charming and fatal. He said he was studying Wittgenstein and wanted to move appropriately to Frege, as if philosophers were stations on a rail line. My plan, he said, is to base my research on one single book: Dummett’s Frege: The Philosophy of Language. Have you read it, Grice? I looked up, and I felt my eyes open a little too widely, which is what happens when one has been asked, in earnest, a question to which one wants to give an impolite answer. Then I turned to my usual persona and said, No. And I hope I won’t. This sounded crueler than I intended. What I meant, or what I should have meant, was: do not build your mind on one book, especially not on a book written by a man who can turn an hour-long viva into one point of logic and then remember the point forever. But Wrigley heard only the surface: an insult to Dummett, or a dismissal of Frege, or both. That is what happens in Oxford. One utters a sentence; other people supply the melodrama. Perhaps the real confession, if I am to make one, is this. I do not enjoy examining. I enjoy thinking. I enjoy teaching, when it is really teaching. Examining is neither. It is judgement in costume. And even when one is being just, one cannot help feeling that one has been enlisted into a ritual whose main function is to produce stories, which will then be repeated, with the point always altered, until everyone believes that the examination was about cruelty rather than about logic. Yet I suppose the students need their marathons. They need their dragons. And if I happen to have been cast, in Dummett’s later mythology, as a dragon of logic, I can only say that the dragon was not trying to eat him. The dragon was trying to see whether he could stand still and think. St John’s, 1962. On windbags, silence, and the quantification of “most” Today we examine a rare case: a violation of Relation. I begin with Harborne, because Harborne is where I first learned that what people say is very often not what they are doing. Teatime, and the domestic stage set: Mother, Father, Aunt Matilda. I must have been nine or so, old enough to be appalled properly, and young enough still to be naive about how families survive. Aunt Matilda, with the confidence of the uninterruptible, was talking. One could never accuse her of lack of content, only of excess of it. At some point she paused for breath, and I, for reasons I can’t now reconstruct except by blaming my own Midlander appetite for bluntness, said: She is a windbag. The silence that followed was not merely a silence. It was a communal intake of air. The silence was, as it were, moral. Mother, without looking at me, said to Father: The weather has been lovely for this time of year. It is a perfect move. In my technical use of ordinary language, I shall call it a gaffe—mine, not hers. I had produced an utterance that, though perhaps true, was a violation not of Quality but of every social maxim that keeps tea from becoming civil war. Mother’s reply was not a denial, not a rebuke, not even a correction. It was an act of swift re-routing. She shifted the talk to meteorology, which is the natural refuge of the English when decency is threatened. The weather is always relevant if relevance is construed broadly enough, and Mother construed it broadly because she wanted to save the occasion. I tell this story in the seminar because it shows something Quinton seems not to understand: that silence, too, is a move, and that sometimes the most relevant thing you can do is to pretend to be irrelevant until the danger passes. At this point Potts, thorny as ever, brought me back from Harborne to St John’s. Of course there are silences, he said, and then he stopped. And what? I asked. And, after a silence, he said again, and there are silences. What do you mean? I asked, though I already knew he meant: I have been reading the gossip. Well, Potts said, Quinton is making such fuss about your silences. What do you mean? I asked, because it is useful, when a man reports gossip, to make him do it properly. During his examination, Potts said. Remember. I’ll quote Quinton verbatim, as per the Oxford Gazette. Perhaps it will come as no surprise that Mr Grice spent most of the two and a half hour session of A. M. Quinton’s examination in silence. The Gazette always takes the examinee’s side, and rightly so. Go on. But, Potts continued, Quinton adds, the fragments of conversation were excellent. I confess I enjoyed that. It is not a compliment exactly, but it is the nearest Oxford will come to admiration without feeling it has surrendered. It also contains two small outrages. Pleoretics, is that what Altham is calling it in the other place, après Geach? Potts asked. What? I said. Quinton’s inaccuracies, Potts replied, with the air of a man who thinks he is defending me by attacking the reporter’s quantifiers. Spent most of the… How can you quantify, for Frege’s sake, most? And fragments? I thought that applied to Heraclitus the obscure. To which I could not resist, and did not resist, the couplet about Heraclitus being dead and the bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed—though I was immediately ashamed, because verse is the quickest way to look as if one has stopped thinking. Potts, carried away now, ended as if waving a handkerchief to his own A. M. Quinton: For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take. This produced, again, silence; but it was not the Harborne silence of moral dismay. It was the St John’s silence of men deciding whether they have just witnessed wit or nonsense, and whether the correct response is laughter or footnotes. So I said what ought to have been obvious from the start. Quinton’s complaint is the complaint of someone who thinks examination is meant to be a performance. I have never believed that. Silence in an examination is not absence; it is pressure. If you answer too quickly you deprive the candidate of the chance to see what he has done. If you speak too much you turn the viva into a lecture and the candidate into a stenographer. And as for most: most is not a number. It is a manoeuvre. Quinton is using it to say, in a socially acceptable way, that he found the experience intolerable. He wants sympathy without having to ask for it. That is why he says most, and not ninety minutes, and why he says fragments, and not sentences. The vocabulary of imprecision is often the vocabulary of pain. Potts looked faintly disappointed that I had made the point without leaving him a further target. He wanted to prosecute most as if it were a technical error. I was telling him it was, in fact, a social success. If you want a rule, I said, it is this. Harborne taught it before Oxford systematised it. When someone says She is a windbag, and everyone goes silent, the correct conversational response is very often: The weather has been lovely for this time of year. And Quinton, whether he knows it or not, is saying the same thing in reverse. He is saying: The examination was a windbag, and I survived it. Being my duty to welcome P. M. S. Hacker to St John’s, as replacement for J. D. Mabbott, I find myself realising, with a faint mixture of pride and irritation, how much of a house (or is it a club?) this St John’s is. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] My love, of course, remains with Corpus, my alma mater; and my two years at Merton were not half-sad either. Still, St John’s had welcomed me first as Lecturer in 1938, while I was still a Senior Scholar at Merton, and then, in due course, made me Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy, “to take the burden off the shoulders,” as the Gazette put it, of good old Mabbott. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] So now, with a certain pleasing symmetry, it is Hacker who comes to my rescue. I do not mean rescue in any melodramatic sense; Oxford has never permitted melodrama except under the disguise of Latin tags and architectural piety. But the fact remains: colleges do not merely replace men, they redistribute the work, and then pretend that the redistribution is a natural fact like rain. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] St John’s, by 1966, had come to maintain a distinguished cohort of tutorial fellows across disciplines, and this is what I mean by house or club. The place has the air of a society whose membership is recorded in lists, but whose real continuity lies in habits: the way people speak at High Table; the way they complain; the way they carry their learning as if it were simply manners. Unlike the more medieval Bononia, St John’s does its corporateness with a modern smoothness: no guilds, no oaths, just elections, minutes, and a steady, quiet assumption that the college will go on. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] In Philosophy the chief figure, other than myself (and, in an historical sense, before myself), was of course Mabbott: moral and political philosophy, fellow and tutor, later President, and always—whatever his office—unmistakably the man who could make an undergraduate feel that a “moral intuition” was something you had to pay rent on. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] In History I must mention Watson; how could I not? And Howard Colvin, elected a Fellow in 1948, a distinguished architectural historian who served as tutor in modern history. Architectural history is, by its nature, the study of what people built when they thought they were building for eternity; Oxford makes it easy to confuse that with what we are doing when we teach for eight weeks at a stretch. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] Then there is Keith Thomas, who joined as Fellow and tutor in modern history in 1955, representing that newer sort of historian who can make superstition sound like a social practice rather than a regrettable lapse. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] Classics, as always at Oxford, was a cornerstone, and it overlaps with ancient history in the way that Oxford subjects always overlap: not by admitting they do, but by quietly sharing the same people. A. N. Sherwin-White, a major figure in Roman history, had been Fellow and tutor in ancient history from 1937. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] And Donald Russell, whom I see at Belsyre, has been Fellow and tutor since 1948: Greek and Latin literature, a leading scholar, and a man who can make one feel, merely by the economy of his speech, that verbosity is a vice. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] While many colleges shared lecturers for the rarer languages, St John’s contrived, in the major European ones, to look self-sufficient. W. G. Moore, for instance, was Fellow and tutor in Modern Languages (specifically French): the sort of appointment that allows a college to feel cosmopolitan while still remaining stubbornly internal. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] History, again, had its own backbone in R. W. Southern, Fellow and tutor from 1937 to 1961: a medievalist, and therefore a man uniquely placed to remind the rest of us that the university is older than our current quarrels and will probably outlast them. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] And then, of course, the sciences. Roger Elliott joined as a tutorial fellow in physics in 1957, a sign (some would call it an omen) of the college’s growing strength in the sciences. I have sometimes called scientism a devil; but as long as the devil confines himself to St John’s, and behaves like a tutorial fellow, he remains—one must concede—benign enough. [HPGRICELAC...SAZIONEv76 | Word] Lewis Carroll called it Laughing, as opposed to Grief, and he was right to put the emphasis where Oxford never quite manages to: on the sound a college makes when it is pleased with itself. St John’s, for all its piety in stone, has always had a particular laugh for Classics, and Latin in particular; it laughs, not because it thinks the subject funny, but because it finds the subject reassuring. If you have Latin, you have a spine; if you have a spine, you can afford a little smugness. The Latin at St John’s in my time was, in practice, watched over by Donald Russell, who was brought in with an explicit intention: to strengthen the college’s Latin provision, as if Latin were a kind of plumbing and Oxford feared a leak. Russell was the central figure for Latin, and the irony that pleased the college was that he was, by temper and training, a brilliant Greek scholar. But the election to the fellowship in 1948 was, as the story went, because the college judged there was a longer future in Latin. Greek is glory; Latin is governance. Greek may be the language of gods and tragedians; Latin is the language in which Oxford writes its minutes, and minutes, in the end, run the world. That, at least, is what Oxford likes to think. Russell taught both Latin and Greek language and literature, and he kept alive the essential craft that separates the merely educated from the properly trained: Latin verse composition. The point of verse composition is not that anyone expects you to become Ovid; it is that, once you have tried to turn your own thought into a Latin hexameter, you stop believing, forever, that language is a transparent medium. You learn that expression has joints, and that the joints bite back. That is a lesson which philosophy, in its more modern moods, tries to forget, and which the Classics, like a stern aunt, insists you remember. When I first arrived, the senior classics fellow was Colin Roberts, a specialist in Greek papyrology, and I saw him rarely. The papyrologist is, by nature, a man whose companions are fragments; and there is something in that that makes one either sociable out of hunger or solitary out of habit. Roberts was the one who invited Russell to apply for the vacancy in 1948, which is exactly the sort of thing Oxford loves: a quiet act of recruitment that later becomes a legend, because it allows the college to say it chose well without ever looking like it was trying. Then there was A. N. Sherwin-White. Officially he was ancient history; in practice he lived much of his life inside Latin sources. His work on Roman governmental practice and on the letters of Pliny the Younger meant that, even when he was not teaching “language,” he was inhabiting it: the Latin text as evidence, as institution, as a record of how a world arranged itself. The ordinary division between “language tutor” and “historian” always looks neat on paper; in Classics it is always a fiction, because the language is the archive. As for my own Latin, it began almost at Harborne, and then years of Clifton did what Clifton does: made the classics feel like discipline rather than decoration. Greek and Latin were, in a more literal sense than most people admit, the excuse by which I got to be the scholar, not the commoner, at Corpus. They also provided the most absurd continuity of my early life: they followed me into the interruption called Rossall, where I found myself teaching Classics while my own walk from Corpus to Merton was, temporarily, postponed by the need to earn bread. What fascinated me, then and later, was the verbal structure. That is why I would so often remind my philosophy pupils of things they thought they had escaped: the optative, for instance, which the Greeks had, and the Romans thought they had, and which English manages to gesture at only by a mixture of auxiliaries and hope. The moral, if one must have one, is not that Latin and Greek are “useful.” The moral is that they make you attentive to form. And form, in the end, is where many philosophical confusions begin and where, if you are lucky, some of them end. [GRICECONVERSAZIONE3 | Word] Mabbott and I were, professionally speaking, a married couple without the romance and without the legal protections. Because we shared responsibility for all the philosophy tutees, our lives were braided together in the most Oxford way: not by intimacy, but by timetable. We would have the same names on our lists, and the same boys on our sofas, and the same essays—sometimes the very same essay—crossing the same small distance from staircase to staircase. Take Strawson, for instance. The young Strawson was, in effect, tutored by both of us; and that is the right phrase, because it captures what Oxford does to a mind: it tutors you, it does not merely teach you. You see the same pupil under two different lights. With Mabbott he would be brought to heel by moral philosophy and political seriousness; with me he would be tempted, or punished, into logic, epistemology, and the history that makes our modern cleverness look rather parochial. The upshot was that the boy’s mind became a kind of shared property, which is the nearest Oxford gets to communism. We saw each other daily, because Oxford is engineered for collision. The SCR is built so that you cannot avoid colleagues without looking like you are avoiding them, which is socially more costly than most people can bear. High Table is worse: it gives avoidance a ceremonial stage and therefore turns it into scandal. So Mabbott and I met as a matter of architectural necessity. We exchanged the same small civilities, the same complaints about pupils who write too much and read too little, the same jokes about the University’s capacity to re-invent boredom as tradition. And beneath it, always, was the operational fact: we were the two men holding philosophy together at St John’s, and St John’s expected the holding to be invisible. As to numbers, people now ask for averages as if a college ran on statistics rather than habit. There is no single published “average” for our period that one can cite without blushing; but it is perfectly reasonable to say that, in the years I shared the work with Mabbott, I carried something like twelve to fifteen tutees per term, and that this was not heroism but normality. A college’s Greats and PPE cohort across the three years might be, in rough terms, twenty-five to thirty men at a time; divide by two tutorial fellows in philosophy and you get the familiar arithmetic of exhaustion. The figures are not exact, but the burden is. And the burden expresses itself in hours. Oxford tutors are always teaching, even when they are not teaching. If you count only the formal meetings, you might get something like eighteen to twenty-two hours a week in term, and much of that in the standard format: two-on-one, which means that fifteen tutees becomes eight or so sessions, with the rest of one’s hours swallowed by preparation, reading, collections, and the endless pastoral work that nobody admits is work until it is missing. In the two-on-one, incidentally, the social chemistry matters. At Corpus, in my own day, Shropshire became my best friend largely because we were forced to disagree in a room while still having to walk out together; Oxford makes friendships by making quarrels safe. There was, too, a division of labour, not official, but as real as any statute. Mabbott had his natural gravity in moral and political philosophy; he could make a discussion of obligation feel like a discussion of the weather in Scotland: unavoidable, and always slightly damp. I, by contrast, took the lead where dryness is a virtue: logic, epistemology, and those bits of history of philosophy that allow you to discover that a modern argument was already anticipated by a dead man with better Latin. The pupils noticed this, of course, and they learned to choose their complaints accordingly. Then came 1963, and with it Mabbott’s elevation to the Presidency. I do not say promotion, because Presidency in a college is not promotion; it is metamorphosis. A tutor becomes an institution. He stops being the man who sees you in the SCR and becomes the man who is said to “have views” about the SCR. And Mabbott, once President, ceased his primary duties as tutorial fellow. The work, however, did not cease. It redistributed itself, as work does, and it redistributed itself onto me. So for those years between 1963 and 1966 my load increased in the simple way that Oxford loads increase: the tutees had no choice but to come to me. People call that Hobson’s Choice, but that gives the matter too much dignity. I called it Grice’s Choice: they chose me because there was nobody else to choose, which is the kind of choosing that makes a philosopher suspicious of the verb. And then, in 1966, St John’s did what St John’s does: it repaired the machinery. It elected a new tutorial fellow in philosophy, P. M. S. Hacker, to succeed the tutorial work that had previously been carried by Mabbott. Mabbott had been President since 1963, succeeding William Costin. [en.wikipedia.org], [wikiwand.com], [en.wikipedia.org] I welcomed Hacker, and I remember finding the whole business faintly comic, because the act of welcoming implies that one is settled, and philosophers are rarely settled. Hacker’s record, in 1966, was not merely respectable; it was plainly designed to alarm the idle. He had read PPE at The Queen’s and taken a Congratulatory First; he had done his doctoral work under H. L. A. Hart on Rules and Duties; he had held the usual sequence of Oxford preferments, St Antony’s and Balliol; and in 1966 he completed the doctorate and was elected to the St John’s fellowship. [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [pmshacker.co.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] I called him Stephan, partly because that was in his names and partly because Oxford has a weakness for turning colleagues into characters by the smallest verbal twist. He was born in London in 1939. [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] On the matter of his parents and the Haifa years: you give this with great confidence, and parts of it are likely right in substance, but the sources I can point to cleanly at the moment do not give me the Haifa-at-eleven detail, nor the full family story in the terms you use. So if you want this paragraph to remain “facts on record,” I can keep it at what is explicitly attested: born in London; the Oxford trajectory; the Hart supervision; election to the St John’s tutorial fellowship in 1966. [sjc.ox.ac.uk], [pmshacker.co.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] What mattered to me, in any case, was not his biography but the relief. With Hacker in place, St John’s had again two men doing philosophy rather than one man doing philosophy and also serving as the college’s emergency service. The companionship was different from the Mabbott companionship. With Mabbott I had shared a life of daily institutional routine and a kind of intellectual division of labour that grew old enough to be comfortable. With Hacker, the relation had to be built anew: new habits, new boundaries, new ways of not stepping on each other’s lectures. And that, too, is Oxford: not the preservation of a tradition, but the endless, quiet re-making of it. When I first came to St John’s in earnest, there was a distinction which one feels in one’s feet before one can formulate it in a sentence. Corpus and Merton had been, for me, the undergraduate and the senior-scholar’s Oxford: rooms, tutors, libraries, the familiar economies of being looked after by an institution while pretending to be independent. Then there was the interim condition of visiting lecturer, which is rather like being asked to play cricket for a side that will not quite give you its cap. You are welcomed, you are used, and you are not, strictly, incorporated. But in 1939 it became official. I came, as the Gazette put it with its usual gift for making duty sound like weather, to take the burden off the shoulders of Mabbott. And that very night I made the step that, in Oxford, is the real ontological leap: I sat with him at High Table. Not near it. Not invited to hover. On it. Or, if one must be spatially precise, above it, on that raised strip of wood which the place still treats as a dais, because Oxford never throws away a medieval arrangement if it can keep it and call it tradition. I had learned the geometry earlier, at Corpus, where as a young man I could see the whole apparatus from below. The undergraduate sees the High from the Low and learns, by osmosis, what hierarchy looks like when it is upholstered. The medieval origin is not mere antiquarianism. The dining hall preserves, with astonishing stubbornness, the layout of the lord’s great hall: the important persons at the far end, raised, looking down the length of the room as if to ensure that the food and the conversation both travel in the proper direction. One could call it historical continuity; one could also call it an architectural implicature, since the building manages to convey, without saying so, that status is a fact of nature and not a decision renewed annually by votes and gossip. And then there is the second function, the one Oxford pretends not to notice while taking it very seriously indeed: academic hierarchy. The elevation does physical work. It reinforces, visually, the difference between master and fellows on the one hand and the undergraduates on the other. The dais does what Latin used to do. It makes authority audible by making it visible. The amusing thing is that the fellows will insist, in conversation, that we are all one community. And then they will climb a small set of steps to dine, as if community required a platform. Still, it would be dishonest to pretend it is only a status machine, because it is also a device for communal bonding among the fellows themselves. It gives you, nightly, a space in which a moral philosopher and a classicist and a physicist may talk as if they belonged to one intellectual town rather than to separate trades. Mabbott and I, in particular, had reason to value that. We shared the same tutees, and therefore shared a professional life that needed a daily place to be oiled. You could see a colleague in the SCR, yes; but High Table forces the meeting under the cover of dinner, which is Oxford’s favourite way of getting men to talk without admitting that talk is the point. The fourth function is rules and rituals, the sort of thing one finds comic only until one realises that the comedy is the glue. There is the Latin grace, which is a small theatrical reminder that the College once spoke to God in the same language it spoke to Aristotle. There are gowns, which are supposed to be merely formal but which, like all uniforms, do quiet psychological work. One puts on the gown and becomes, for the duration of a meal, a representative of the institution rather than merely a man with an appetite. If you dislike metaphysics, try wearing a gown: it makes you feel the difference between being oneself and being an office. And then, the best part, which the undergraduates never quite see in the right light. The pleasure, such as it is, returns when we descend. After the meal the High Table ceases to be high, because the fellows get up and move, and the movement itself is the release. We go off to the SCR for what Oxford likes to treat as an afterthought but which is, in practice, the continuation of the evening in its proper register: dessert, port, sherry, the loosening of ties and tongues, and the real commerce of a college, which is not food at all but the circulation of small remarks, the settling of tiny frictions, and the making of tomorrow’s understanding without ever drawing it up as a document. But that is, as you say, for a longer day. Here I only want to record the first high: the first night I sat up there with Mabbott, newly elected, newly burdened, and newly aware that in Oxford one does not merely join a college. One is raised, quite literally, into its conversational altitude. By 1962 I had acquired, in addition to responsibilities, a certain topographical confusion about common rooms, and I began to suspect that Oxford’s real metaphysic is not Substance and Attribute but Room and Counter-room. At Corpus, matters were clean. There was a Junior Common Room, which was junior in the ordinary sense: the place where the young behaved as if they were older than they were, and where the older behaved as if they were still young. One could see it, and one could see oneself not belonging to it, and that was that. Merton, in my brief and slightly equivocal period there, had its own arrangements, but I hardly entered the JCR at all; Merton always felt, to me, like a place where you were either inside a tradition or outside a door. St John’s, however, made it very clear, partly by being large, and partly by being linguistically mischievous. In 1939 I found myself confronted not with one common room but a small taxonomy: the SCR, the JCR, and then the thing that does the real implicature-work, the MCR. It is the MCR that tells you that the college has decided that “junior” is not one category but two, and that Oxford will always subdivide a category if subdivision allows it to preserve an older hierarchy while pretending to be administratively modern. The first irritation is the undergraduate habit of calling their room the SJCR, as if the acronym itself were a small act of sovereignty. The letters stand, of course, for St John’s Common Room, which would have been a tolerable name if it did not also happen to be, in my Corpus ear, the name for the junior common room as such. The undergraduates, by saying SJCR, manage to suggest both that it is merely a local version of a generic institution and that it is, in some mysterious way, the institution itself. The J does double duty: Junior and John, and the whole thing has the air of a joke which the speaker does not know is a joke. The SCR, by contrast, is where the fellows perform the pleasant fiction that they are relaxing. It is for chess and bridge, and for that careful sequence of port and sherry and dessert which Oxford treats as a digestive necessity but which is really a conversational technology. One descends from High Table and then, having been official, one becomes unofficial, which is Oxford’s favourite kind of transition: the same people, the same hierarchy, but now with permission to be mildly wicked about one’s colleagues. The SJCR behaves much more like what the modern world would call a student union: it has an elected committee and a President, and that President has the agreeable duty of representing undergraduate interests to the Governing Body, which is the body of fellows, including Mabbott and myself, who can, when we are not careful, mistake “governance” for “wisdom.” The relation between the SJCR and the SCR is therefore often one of formal negotiation. Students pass motions about college life: food, gate hours, facilities, the sort of topics that remind you, very helpfully, that philosophy is not the only thing a human being needs. The SJCR President then presents these to the fellows, and we discuss them with that peculiar Oxford seriousness which is reserved for matters that are, in truth, not life and death but are treated as if they threatened the fabric of tradition. It was around then that I realised something which I later generalised, perhaps too eagerly, into a moral about conversation: helpfulness does not equal cooperation. A man can be helpful and still not be cooperating, and a body can be cooperating and still not be helpful. The SJCR can be perfectly cooperative in passing a motion, and the Governing Body can be perfectly cooperative in receiving it, and the result can still be unhelpful to everyone, because what is being cooperated in is simply the production of paperwork and polite postponement. Conversely, a fellow can be “helpful” by making a concession, and thereby destroy the possibility of actual cooperation by setting an impossible precedent. Oxford has an almost artistic gift for this distinction, though it seldom admits that it has learned it. And then comes the third room, the one that makes the taxonomy complete: the MCR. At St John’s, this is the Middle Common Room, and the phrase “middle” does not mean middling; it means in-between. It is for graduate students, and its existence quietly subdivides the junior category into undergraduates and graduates, with the latter treated as a different species: older, more serious, less likely to riot, but also more likely to demand a reading room and complain about heating as if it were an epistemological right. In time the MCR became its own constitutional body, which is Oxford’s way of conceding that the research student population has grown too large to be handled by a single undifferentiated notion of “junior.” As a tutorial fellow, I am of course a member of the SCR, and my dealings with the SJCR are mostly indirect: disciplinary or administrative matters when grievances are brought forward, and the occasional joint event when the undergraduates decide, briefly, that it might be entertaining to invite fellows into their world. But the two worlds remained largely separate throughout the 1940s and 1950s, which is probably for the best. Mixing common rooms too freely is like mixing conceptual schemes: it sounds democratic, but it produces confusion, and the confusion then has to be managed by committees, which is how Oxford reproduces itself. When I became Vice-President of St John’s, the President was Poole, and I remember being struck, not by the weight of office (the weight is always borne by someone else), but by the metaphysical nuisance of the prefix. Vice. One cannot be Vice-anything without being reminded that English does not keep its homonyms in separate boxes. Vice is, in one mouth, a moral defect; in another, a deputyship; and the College expects you to embody the latter while never appearing to indulge the former. The post itself therefore raises the best kind of question, the kind Oxford hates because it sounds like a joke: no vice without what. Without the super. Without the principal. Without the man who, by being President, allows your own office to exist as a shadow and a service. This was metaphysically important to me because it repeats, in brick and bureaucracy, the very difficulty I met when I tried to make my conversational apparatus sound tidy. Suppose I call be relevant a maxim, as I do. Very good. It sounds like a single instruction and therefore like something the young can obey and the old can pretend they have always obeyed. But then I have be perspicuous, which I confess I dislike even as a phrase, because it has the air of a schoolmaster’s reprimand disguised as advice. Yet I need it. I cannot do without it. But what is it, exactly. If I call it a maxim, I immediately find myself listing what fall under it: be brief, avoid obscurity, avoid ambiguity, be orderly. And then the embarrassment begins. The things that do the work are not the grand exhortation be perspicuous. The things that do the work are the smaller admonitions. Be perspicuous begins to look like what I once, perhaps wrongly, called a super-maxim, and the sub-maxims become the maxims proper, the ones you can actually violate in public and be caught. So too with Poole. He is the super; I am the sub. He presides; I vicar. He can afford to have a view; I am expected to have a schedule. He can represent the College; I am expected to keep the College from representing itself badly. A Vice-President is, in practice, a bundle of sub-duties masquerading as an office. One is meant to stand in, but not to stand out. One is meant to take on work, but not to take on dignity. One is meant to relieve, but not to replace. And this is where the parallel becomes comforting. Just as be brief and its friends do all the labour that be perspicuous is too grand to dirty itself with, so the Vice does the labour that the President must not be seen doing. If Poole had to arrange everything personally, he would cease to be Presidential and become, dread word, helpful. And I had already learned, from common rooms and from undergraduates with motions, that helpfulness does not equal cooperation, and it certainly does not equal authority. Helpfulness is what you do when you want things to go smoothly. Authority is what you are said to have when smoothness has already been achieved. So I took the moral in the only way an Oxford philosopher can take it, by turning it into a small resentment dressed as principle. I do not object to doing the work. I object to having to do all the work, and then having the super-maxim, whether it is called Perspicuity or Poole, receive the credit for the order that my little sub-maxims have produced. In short, Vice is not a vice until it is asked to be the whole virtue. During my time at St John’s there were, as it happens, three Presidents whose names function for me less like entries in a calendar and more like three styles of authority. Sir Cyril Norwood, President from 1934 to 1946. I arrived under Norwood, and one felt at once that the College had acquired, as its head, a man who had spent his life training boys and then, by a natural bureaucratic extension, training a college. He had been a headmaster at Harrow, and one could feel it in the atmosphere: not in any crude way, but in the way the place seemed to assume that discipline, once installed, could run quietly on its own. He was also a classicist by training, which made him, at least in principle, one of us; and yet he was, in practice, an educationalist, which meant he had that peculiar capacity to talk about learning as if it were an instrument of policy. During the war years, the Presidency had a further quality: the college felt less like a club and more like an institution under strain, and Norwood’s manner suited that. He did not need to be charming; he needed to be steady. I cannot pretend I knew him intimately. Presidents are, by design, men you see at the proper angle: High Table, meetings, ceremonies. But I remember the general impression: a man who embodied the idea that education is serious national business, and that a college is, among other things, a training ground for the governing class. The war probably made that idea feel less like a slogan and more like a grim fact. [en.wikipedia.org], [archives.shef.ac.uk] Austin Lane Poole, President from 1947 to 1957. Poole succeeded Norwood and was, in temper, almost the opposite: not the headmaster, but the medievalist. If Norwood made the College feel like a school for the nation, Poole made it feel like a long chapter of English history that happened to have dinner. He had been tutor in modern history at St John’s long before he was President, and he carried himself like a man for whom documents were more real than personalities. His scholarship was the sort that makes one want to use the word learned without irony: Domesday, Magna Carta, medieval obligations and institutions. One felt, under Poole, that St John’s was being run by someone who knew exactly how institutions outlast individuals, and who therefore never treated any single individual as indispensable. That is not an insult; it is one of the healthier forms of authority. He was President from 1947 to 1957, and the dates themselves matter: he presided over the post-war settling, when Oxford was trying to return to normal while quietly admitting it would never quite be the old normal again. [en.wikipedia.org] J. D. Mabbott, President from 1963 to 1969. Mabbott was the most personally salient to me, because he was not merely “the President” but my daily colleague first, my co-tutor, my fellow sufferer in the philosophy business, and then, in 1963, metamorphosed into the College itself. He had been a fellow of St John’s for decades and became President in 1963, serving until 1969. As a tutor he was moral and political philosophy incarnate, with the Scottish seriousness that makes even a joke sound like a principle. When he became President, the comedy was that he did not cease to be Mabbott; rather, Mabbott acquired, like a new layer of clothing, a public face. And for those of us left doing the tutorial labour, his Presidency had an immediate operational consequence: the work did not disappear into the President’s office; it migrated, and for a time it migrated largely onto me, until the College elected Hacker in 1966 and the machinery was made properly two-handed again. If Norwood was authority as educational policy, and Poole authority as historical continuity, Mabbott was authority as lived collegial fact: the man you had argued with in the SCR now deciding, in Governing Body, what the College “must” do. [en.wikipedia.org] When people speak of the BPhil at Oxford they sometimes speak as if it were a medieval relic we have been polishing since the reign of Alfred, whereas in its modern form it was a distinctly post-war contrivance, and therefore, by Oxford standards, almost indecently new. Yes, there was once a thing called the BPhil as early as 1682, and then it vanished, as Oxford qualifications sometimes do, like a Latin tag dropped in a modern conversation: not refuted, merely no longer heard. [en.wikipedia.org] But the BPhil that mattered to us, and that turned philosophy into something like a profession rather than a pastime with gowns, was instituted in 1946, and the hand behind it was Ryle’s. [media.phil...y.ox.ac.uk], [encyclopedia.com], [jstor.org] I say “instituted” because Oxford does not like to admit that it invents; it prefers to say it “revives,” or “restores,” or “continues” something that had, inconveniently, not been continuing. Ryle, who could be a headmaster without owning the cane, simply made the thing exist. And once it existed it began, in the Oxford way, to look as if it had always been there. The official story, as one might tell it, is that the BPhil was proposed to meet a need for a higher standard of philosophical training after the war: an attempt to give the graduate student something more than the old arrangement of drifting between colleges, dining societies, and private reading, and then emerging, years later, either with a thesis or with a set of habits. The unofficial story is that Oxford discovered, after 1945, that philosophy could not go on behaving as if it were merely an ornament on Greats. The world had become too technical, too international, too crowded with arguments that didn’t ask Oxford’s permission. My own relation to the BPhil was prosaic. I examined. I sat in rooms where very bright young people tried to find out, under pressure, what they actually meant. I did not always enjoy it. Tutoring is intimate cruelty; examining is public cruelty. The first can be redeemed by conversation; the second is redeemed only, if at all, by fairness. Still, it suited me in a way. The BPhil was, in its modern form, the degree in which one could see philosophy becoming what I would call “professional”: not in the vulgar sense of earning money (though some eventually did), but in the sense of being trained in the craft of sustained argument, lucidity, and responsibility for what one says. It made explicit what Oxford had long done by implicature. And since you want the implicature made explicit, I’ll do so: I am here implicating that the BPhil mattered more to the day-to-day life of Oxford philosophy than the DPhil did, not because the doctorate is intellectually empty, but because, in our habitat, the centre of gravity was the tutorial and the taught graduate formation. Ryle may have founded the BPhil in 1946, but the colleges, by the sheer weight of Greats and PPE and their weekly essays, supplied the tone in which the BPhil was heard. [media.phil...y.ox.ac.uk], [encyclopedia.com], [jstor.org] So if someone asks what I “was,” in Oxford, it is tempting to answer: not a committee-man, not a thesis-factory, not a bureaucrat of research. I was a tutor in Greats, and an examiner of the BPhil, and those two roles—one private, one public—were the practical channels through which most philosophy actually got taught, corrected, and, occasionally, improved. I came out of the first John Locke Lecture with the peculiar sensation of having attended an examination, not of a candidate, but of a building. The Locke Lectures, in their modern incarnation, began in 1950, funded by Henry Wilde, which already contains a mild Oxford joke: you call them Locke and pay for them with Wilde. [philosophy.ox.ac.uk], [en.wikipedia.org] The first lecturer was Oets Kolk Bouwsma. I had come, not as a participant, not as a host, but as an audience-member, which at Oxford is a slightly un-English role for a Fellow: one sits still and is expected to listen as if listening were a neutral activity. [en.wikipedia.org] The lecture itself was not the thing that struck me most forcibly. The building was. The Examination Schools on the High. A great Victorian contrivance designed, in the plainest terms, to do one thing: to hold examinations. Not to welcome visitors. Certainly not to flatter foreigners. And yet there we were, importing a distinguished mind, seating ourselves like docile undergraduates, and letting the Schools perform a new social function: not testing Oxford’s own, but displaying Oxford to the world. If you want an implicature, here it is, and I am making it on purpose. When Oxford invites a man to speak in the Examination Schools, it is not only inviting him to lecture. It is inviting him to be examined by the room. The room is saying, without saying: this is where we judge people. Now please talk. One can see why the series had first been offered to Wittgenstein, and why he declined: the formality of it is the whole point, and the formality is also the nuisance. Wittgenstein, I am told, disliked the idea of formal lectures without the audience asking and answering questions. In other words, he disliked precisely what Oxford was trying to buy with Wilde’s money: the set-piece. [en.wikipedia.org] I knew the Schools well enough in their proper métier. I had seen the rows, the desks, the clockwork, the invigilation. I had seen young men in sub-fusc sweating out their thoughts under the gaze of stone and the pressure of time. The place was built to make you feel that your mind is being weighed. And now it was being used to make a visiting lecturer feel that his mind was being celebrated. It is the same feeling, with a different costume. If one is in a prophetic mood, one can almost see the series’ future written into its earliest choices. The Lockes, as a run of names, have an unmistakable transatlantic flavour. After Bouwsma, and a hiatus, come Hao Wang, then Arthur Prior, then A. C. Jackson, then Vlastos, then Goodman, then Hintikka, then Sellars, then Lorenzen. It reads like a shipping manifest of modern philosophy: logic, time, art, ancient philosophy, language, and the whole American appetite for making a system where Oxford prefers a habit. [en.wikipedia.org] Bouwsma first. Wang with his mathematical severity. Prior making time behave as if it were a proper subject for a syllogism. Vlastos giving Plato and Socrates a kind of modern respectability. Goodman turning “symbol systems” into a civilised disease. Hintikka bringing Scandinavia’s coolness to Oxford’s damp. Sellars, with that robust American manner of taking metaphysics seriously while pretending he is too grown-up for it. Lorenzen, more continental, reminding Oxford that rigour was not invented in England, only advertised there. [en.wikipedia.org] And here is the comic sting I allow myself at the end, because Oxford encourages such endings by its very architecture. I left the Examination Schools after my first attendance, and (as it turned out) my last, as an audience-member at the first John Locke Lecture. Outside, the High Street carried on in its ordinary way, as if nothing had occurred. I remember thinking: the room was built to ask questions of candidates. Tonight it asked a question of us, and we answered by sitting quietly and calling it culture. Who, after all, was being examined. I went up to Burlington House for the Henriette Hertz Trust Annual Philosophical Lecture on one of my days off from the Admiralty, which is already an odd sentence to write, because it contains an implicature that ought not to be needed: a day off, in those years, was not a day on. It was simply a day in which one was permitted to pretend, for a few hours, that one’s mind belonged to philosophy rather than to files, signals, and the administrative metaphysics of Whitehall. I had been living in Marylebone for the practical reason that Marylebone is close enough to the Admiralty to make walking a possibility and delay a manageable vice. The daily vector, as it were, ran toward Whitehall, and one learned the route the way one learns a proof: by repetition until it becomes automatic. So to go, not toward Whitehall, but across to Piccadilly, felt like an act of geographical disobedience. One of the peculiar disciplines of wartime London was traffic, and not traffic in the modern leisurely sense, but traffic as obstruction, delay, and the constant sense that the city is trying to carry on with fewer resources and more urgency than it was built to bear. On a workday you accept it because you must. On a day off you resent it because you have chosen it, which is always the more irritating case. Still, the lecture existed, and I was curious enough to do what I later pretended I would never do: to take trouble for philosophy. The title that year was Immaterialism, delivered by A. A. Luce. It struck me as a pleasing perversity: to go to a heavy building in a heavy city, in a heavy time, to listen to a man talk about the immaterial. But perversity, in moderation, is one of the ways an Oxford man keeps his sanity. Burlington House, once reached, performs its own piece of work. You enter and you feel, at once, that the place is public in function and private in temperament. It has the architecture of a residence that has been turned into authority without ever entirely surrendering the manners of being a residence. The courtyard is not a street; it is a controlled pause. The stone says institution, but the proportions still say admission. One cannot simply arrive; one is, in effect, received. And here I will be openly Gricean about it. I am now making an implicature on purpose: when you put philosophy in a building that looks like inherited respectability, you invite the audience to infer that philosophy itself is part of that respectability. You are not merely saying, come and hear an argument. You are suggesting, without saying it, that the argument is already endorsed by the very fact that it is being uttered inside those walls. Oxford examines in the Schools. London, at Burlington House, does something subtler: it doesn’t examine you by questioning you; it examines you by seating you in a room that implies you have qualified to be there. It makes attendance feel like membership. It makes thinking feel like a social rank. And yet I remember, leaving, that the hardest part of the whole business had not been any metaphysical thesis. It had been the ordinary struggle with London: the crowds, the delays, the sense that I had gone out of my way for something that could not possibly be operationally useful. Which is precisely why it was, for that evening, useful. It reminded me that not every journey is toward a result; some are merely away from one’s own necessities. I went back to Marylebone by whatever route would carry me, thinking, with a last bit of sour amusement, that the only thing more immaterial than immaterialism is the notion that a London day off is ever entirely off. (Strawson with Grice at Burlington House, wartime day off, Luce 1944), keeping the announced implicature style. Strawson came with me, partly because he was curious and partly because he enjoyed watching me behave as if I were not curious. We travelled from my Marylebone flat by the most inconvenient route possible, which is to say by the route London in wartime permits. I complained the whole way, because I had a day off from Admiralty work and therefore felt entitled to resent the city as if resentment were recreation. Strawson, with that calm cheerfulness of his, observed that the Henriette Hertz lecture was “time-honoured,” which was his way of telling me, without raising his voice, that I had arrived late to something I ought, by Oxford standards, to have been attending since infancy. He added, on my face, that I had missed the pre-war ones. This was said with the air of reporting a minor fact, but it contained an implicature, and he knew it did. The implicature was: if you are going to treat philosophy as a vocation, you might occasionally have to leave Oxford to hear it spoken elsewhere. I said, to save my dignity, that I had missed them on purpose. Strawson said nothing, which was his method for letting my falsehood die of embarrassment. We arrived at Burlington House, which is the sort of building that makes you feel you have been admitted rather than arrived. The courtyard does the work of a porter without having to wear the uniform. The stone does the work of an argument without having to give premises. And I am now making an implicature on purpose: if you put philosophy in a place that looks like inherited authority, you invite the audience to infer that what is about to be said has already been socially certified. You are not merely hearing a lecture; you are participating in a piece of national self-respect. The title was Immaterialism, and the lecturer A. A. Luce. That alone was enough to make the evening feel like a deliberate contradiction: a heavy building, a heavy city, a heavy war, and then, as the chosen topic, the immaterial. I found myself thinking that London specialises in making the immaterial visible: “prestige” becomes stone, “learning” becomes a corridor, and “philosophy” becomes an annual appointment as if it were a dinner. Afterwards, outside on Piccadilly, Strawson said something like: it is funny, isn’t it, that Oxford trains us to examine other people, and London trains us to be examined by buildings. I told him he was being metaphysical. He replied, with the politeness of a future Waynflete holder, that he was merely being accurate. And as we made our way back toward Marylebone, I had the last sour thought, the one these occasions always produce. If a lecture is called the Annual Philosophical Lecture, someone is being examined. The question is only whether it is the lecturer, the audience, or philosophy itself. I left Reading as soon as decency permitted, which is to say, as soon as my bit was done and I had shaken hands often enough to make it look as if I believed in conferences. I have never been much good at lingering. Lingering is what you do when you are confident that the conversation will improve if you stay. I have always suspected the reverse: that conversations, like wines, have a peak and then become a duty. The occasion itself had been the joint session of the Mind Association and the Aristotelian Society. Joint sessions are one of those English compromises that wear their own metaphysics on their sleeve: two bodies pretend to be equal, and then one of them behaves as if it owns the proceedings. In this case the Aristotelian Society, as usual, had the last word by printing the thing in its Supplementary Volume, which is precisely the last word I am not dying either to see or, still less, to read. [academic.oup.com], [jstor.org] Braithwaite was in the chair, which means that the proceedings were conducted with that combination of courtesy and quiet control that makes Cambridge chairmanship feel like a moral force. White had come down from Hull, and I was reminded again of the curious geography of British philosophy: one is constantly travelling from a place that sounds like a ship’s destination to a place that sounds like a market town, and all the while talking as if the topic were timeless. [academic.oup.com], [jstor.org] But what I remember, leaving, was not the arguments. It was the building. Reading is a red-brick university, and its main hall wears the fact with an almost performative honesty: red brick for the body, Portland stone for the manners. The Great Hall is dated 1905; and it looks like what it was meant to be: a civic-educational instrument, not a medieval inheritance. Outside, the brick says new money, new institutions, the second generation. Then the Portland stone steps in to do what Portland stone always does in England: it supplies legitimacy. It is the architectural equivalent of saying, yes, yes, we know we are not Oxford, but we have put on a bit of Oxford’s accent. [historicen...and.org.uk], [britishlis...ings.co.uk], [collection...ding.ac.uk] Inside, the joke is sharper. The hall is barrel-vaulted, Neo-Georgian in its plaster dignity, and designed large enough to make assemblies feel like public events rather than like large tutorials. And it was built, among other purposes, for examinations. That is what an academic hall is for when it is being honest: to make young people sweat in rows while adults walk about with clipboards and a curious air of moral neutrality. [historicen...and.org.uk], [britishlis...ings.co.uk], [blogs.reading.ac.uk], [collection...ding.ac.uk] Now, I am making an implicature on purpose. When you deliver a philosophical paper in a hall built for examinations, you are inviting the audience to infer that someone is being tested. Not merely the theory. Not merely the speaker. Someone. It is the academic version of a loaded question, except that the load is carried by brick and Portland stone. Oxford, by contrast, does not need to borrow legitimacy from Portland. It has its own stone, and it has been making legitimacy out of it for centuries. When I later found myself tempted to sneer at “red-brick,” what I was really sneering at was the absence of that old stone habit of pretending that one’s buildings had always been there. Red brick admits its own date. Oxford stone tries to deny time. Reading, at least, is honest. I came out of the Great Hall and thought, briefly, about the river, because one cannot be in Reading without being reminded that it sits in the Thames basin, even if the hall itself is not poised obligingly beside the water. I entertained, for a moment, the fantasy of taking a canoe back to the Isis, as if one could return to Oxford by following the river and not by submitting to timetables. Then I remembered that I am not a romantic, merely a man who enjoys romantic thoughts provided he does not have to act on them. So I took the train. On the way out I found myself whistling, half out of mockery and half out of genuine affection, that old line about Scarlet Town. It is one of those songs that pretends to be about love but is really about cruelty, which makes it, in an oblique way, suitable accompaniment to a philosophy meeting. In Scarlet Town, where I was born. One can say it of Reading without meaning it. One can say it of Oxford and mean it more than one should. [en.wikipedia.org], [eg.bucknell.edu] And then the last irony, which I enjoyed in the privacy of my own mind, because private enjoyment is safer than public wit. I had allowed my voice to be heard extramurally, in a hall designed to examine undergraduates, under the auspices of two societies of which one would later behave as if it were the proprietor. I left quickly, caught the first train, and thought: the building has examined me, not I it. The red brick has asked its question, and I have answered it by returning to the stone. [historicen...and.org.uk], [britishlis...ings.co.uk] Grice / Hart (Intelligence) Merton Philosophical Library. Grice has The Philosophical Quarterly open in the manner of a man inspecting a word for counterfeit. Hart sits down opposite him, glances at the cover, and smiles as if he has walked in on a familiar vice. Hart: You look as if you have met a noun you dislike. Grice: Not a noun. A noun with an inflated sense of its own dignity. Hart: Intelligence. Grice: There it is. Holloway has put it on a dust-jacket as if it were a virtue one might cultivate by reading. Hart: And I have reviewed it, which you are now treating as complicity. Grice: Your review is not the offence. The word is the offence. Oxford dislikes big words in public and loves them in private, provided they arrive stamped Confidential. Hart: You are making the war do too much work. Grice: The war has already done too much work. I merely refuse to let Oxford pretend it never happened. Hart: Holloway means intelligent behaviour. Criteria, performance, signs. Not files. Grice: That is exactly the trouble. One word, three lives: cleverness, behaviour, and bureaucracy. A voice interrupts from behind them, already bored by philosophy and therefore determined to improve its accuracy. Berlin: If you are going to make bureaucracy into metaphor, at least get the bureaucracy right. Grice: Berlin. Berlin: Intelligence is not a halo. It is a committee. And it has a pedigree. Hart: Give us the pedigree, then. Berlin: Army first, if you must have precedence: the War Office gets a Directorate of Military Intelligence in 1873. The Admiralty begins with a Foreign Intelligence Committee in 1882, becomes a Naval Intelligence Department in 1887, and is re-made as a Naval Intelligence Division in 1912 with the War Staff machinery. The Air side arrives later in its own administrative dialect. [wikidiff.com], [Conversationv1 | Word], [SperanzaGr...versazione | Word], [etymonline.com] Grice: Thank you. You have made it sound even less intelligent than Holloway did. Berlin: Most intelligence is less intelligent than the noun suggests. It is diligence with paper. Hart: And yet by the Second War it is no longer three separate diligences. Berlin: Exactly. By 1936 you already have central inter-service machinery; by July it is the Joint Intelligence Sub-Committee, with the deputy directors of intelligence of the three services, and it continues through the war under the Chiefs of Staff. That is why the word becomes joint. Not romantic. Joint. [stjohnscol...oxford.org], [en-academic.com] Grice: Which is the comic Oxford point. Oxford treats intelligence as a grand abstraction or a compliment. Whitehall treats it as a workflow. Hart: So your irritation is lexical but not merely lexical. Grice: It is lexical because it is moral. Oxford wants the veteran prestige and the veteran vocabulary without admitting what the vocabulary was for. At that point, Strawson appears, as if summoned by the word moral. Strawson: The ordinary-language point is simpler. Intelligence does three jobs: information, assessment, and cleverness. Oxford collapses them because it saves syllables. Grice: Thank you. That is my entire complaint in one sentence, which is indecently efficient. Hart closes the journal. Hart: Then the moral is not D-Day. Grice: The moral is that after the war Oxford returned to its well game, and some nouns refused to return obediently. Berlin: Never complain, never explain. Grice: And never allow a noun to pretend it has only one history. Grice enters the room as if the room were already speaking. GRICE: Today is a game of one. I sit down and place my hands where the piece begins, and the first thing that happens is that it becomes a game of two, because the score is already there, waiting, not as paper but as a set of instructions with an author behind them. GRICE: Correction: it is a game of two, and the second player is unusually quiet. RAVEL: Quietness is not absence. It is a marking. GRICE: Good. We will treat markings as moves. And we will treat the performer’s compliance as uptake. RAVEL: If you like. But do not call it “compliance” as if I were a policeman. I am giving you conditions of success. GRICE: Conditions of success are exactly what we want. Now: your first move is dynamic. RAVEL: Pianissimo. GRICE: That is a beautifully Gricean word. It says little and requires much. RAVEL: It requires touch, not will. Do not “intend” pianissimo; do it. GRICE: The performer, you see, is tempted to add. He is tempted to supply an explanation to the audience in sound. But your instruction is not “explain”; it is “play.” RAVEL: And hold the line. Make the melody sing without becoming vocal. GRICE: So your contribution is to supply a prop: a melody with a certain contour, and a dynamic constraint that prevents it from turning into theatre. RAVEL: The theatre is already there. It is a pavane. It walks. It does not rush to persuade. GRICE: We should note that “walk” is already conversational. It is pace. It is turn-taking over time. RAVEL: And it is memory. When I write a phrase, I expect you to remember its earlier shape when it returns. GRICE: Ah: presupposition. You presuppose that the performer will keep a prior chord in mind. RAVEL: The fourth chord, yes. Keep it in mind as an ear-reference. Do not let the harmony become a wash. GRICE: Notice what has happened. The game is no longer only between performer and score. You are now addressing the performer as a competent partner. You are relying on his capacity to retain a background condition: “the fourth chord,” as you say, functions as a standing assumption. RAVEL: Exactly. If he forgets it, the later return will sound like a new remark rather than a reprise. GRICE: And that would be a conversational infelicity: the hearer would fail to recognise an allusion. RAVEL: You are pleased with yourself. GRICE: Not at all; I am merely mapping. Now, the left hand. You have written an accompaniment that is not merely “support.” It is a regulated murmuring. If it speaks too loudly, it violates Quantity in a musical way. RAVEL: The left hand must not comment on the melody. It must enable it. GRICE: So, again: a cooperative venture. Your instruction is “do not steal the floor.” RAVEL: I do not write debates. I write balance. GRICE: And the performer’s goal? I look down at the page. My own goal has been, up to now, to “play the piece.” But that phrase hides two rival aims: to satisfy the score’s demands, and to satisfy the audience’s expectations. The audience, even when silent, is a third party with its own norms: they want the melody; they want the emotion; they want recognisability. GRICE: Now we add the addressee. The audience is an overhearer who believes it is entitled to the point. RAVEL: And is it not? GRICE: It is entitled to the point, not entitled to the method. That is the performer’s temptation: to show the method. To over-enunciate. To turn pianissimo into “listen how delicately I am playing.” RAVEL: That is vanity. And it is loud, even when soft. GRICE: So the performer must cooperate with you against the audience’s demand for explicitness. RAVEL: Not against. With. The audience will infer if the performer does not bully them. GRICE: Exactly: we do not force the implicature; we place the cues. Now, tempo. You have indicated a restraint that is almost moral. RAVEL: It is a pavane. It is not a waltz. It must not flirt. GRICE: A lovely prohibition. “Do not flirt” is, in ordinary talk, a maxim of manner. RAVEL: It is also articulation. Keep the legato but do not blur the harmonic rhythm. GRICE: So: legato in the line; clarity in the changes; soft dynamic; steady pulse. Each is a move that constrains the space of permissible interpretations. RAVEL: And each is there to keep the piece from becoming sentimental. GRICE: Sentimentality is a conversational vice: it pretends to mean more than it can warrant. RAVEL: You see it. GRICE: I see that your instructions are cooperative. You do not give “difficult props.” You do not set traps. You write what you need for the intended effect, and you rely on the performer to meet you halfway. RAVEL: Meet me exactly, if possible. GRICE: Now a technical difficulty: voicing. The melody must project while remaining within pianissimo. That is a contradiction only if the performer thinks projection is volume. It is not. It is tone, touch, weighting, and pedalling that does not smear. RAVEL: Half-pedal, then release. Do not drown the cadence. Let the dissonance speak and then vanish. GRICE: Here we have your conversational rhythm: you allow a tension, you do not explain it, you let it resolve, and you move on. The performer’s task is not to add commentary. It is to time the release so the audience can recover the intended inference: grace, distance, and a kind of nobility that is not triumph. RAVEL: And the infamous “infante défunte” must not be made into biography. It is a title. It is not a sob. GRICE: Precisely. A title is like a preface: it frames but does not license excess. I begin. The first phrase is quiet, and it remains quiet. The room becomes an instrument of listening. I feel, immediately, the presence of the audience as a pressure to “give them” the melody, and I feel, more strongly, the score’s pressure to withhold. The withholding is the point. GRICE: The performer is now cooperating with the composer by refusing to over-cooperate with the audience. RAVEL: Yes. Give them enough to infer. Not enough to stop inferring. GRICE: And that is our lesson for today: the music is an ordered exchange of moves whose success depends on shared norms, selective explicitness, and the performer’s discipline in not saying, in sound, what the score has already arranged the audience to understand. I keep the fourth chord in mind. I keep the line walking. The audience, without being told, begins to follow. GRICE: Today is conversation for two. No audience, no overhearers, no score. Just you and me, and the board as our shared record. RICHARDSON: The board is not merely record. It is also constraint. If you forget it, you speak nonsense. GRICE: Good. Constraint is our first maxim. Now: we both have private goals. RICHARDSON: Mine is to win. GRICE: Mine is to win as well. But we have a higher cooperative goal: to keep playing chess, i.e., to make our moves intelligible under a shared system. RICHARDSON: The higher goal is not sentimental. It is the condition for any lower goal. GRICE: Precisely. Let us proceed, and I’ll annotate the “conversation” as we go: move, uptake, counter-move, and the point at which “Grice wins” becomes more than a report of checkmate. Move 1. GRICE: e4. I open with a claim: central space, lines for bishop and queen. I am, as it were, asserting a thesis. RICHARDSON: e5. I accept the topic and contest it. Same thesis, opposite speaker. Move 2. GRICE: Nf3. I attack your e5. A question, lightly pressed. RICHARDSON: Nc6. I answer by defending and developing. Cooperative and adversarial in one breath. Move 3. GRICE: Bb5. I pin your knight to your king, implying: your defence has a concealed dependency. RICHARDSON: a6. I challenge the implication: you may pin, but I will ask you to clarify by relocating your bishop. Move 4. GRICE: Ba4. I keep the pressure without over-committing. Economy: keep the same “topic” with minimal rephrasing. RICHARDSON: Nf6. I attack your e4. Now I make you respond. Move 5. GRICE: O-O. I castle. I refuse to answer your question directly and instead improve my own position. A conversational dodge that remains within the rules. RICHARDSON: Be7. I unpin by preparation and announce I am ready to castle too. I keep the talk symmetrical. Move 6. GRICE: Re1. I reinforce the e-file, hinting at future tension on e5. I store an implicature. RICHARDSON: b5. I push you again. Same move-type as a6: a repeated demand for spatial clarification. Move 7. GRICE: Bb3. I comply: I retreat to preserve the piece and keep the diagonal. Uptake without surrender. RICHARDSON: d6. I support e5. I respond to your Re1 by thickening the centre. Move 8. GRICE: c3. I prepare d4. I am not saying d4 yet; I am licensing it. RICHARDSON: O-O. You secure your king. Cooperative: you make the coming complications legitimate. Move 9. GRICE: h3. I ask your bishop to declare itself. I also prevent Bg4. A prophylactic conversational rule: block a foreseeable interruption. RICHARDSON: Nb8. I withdraw the knight, intending …Nbd7. I seem to concede space, but I deny you clarity about my eventual central break. GRICE: Note: you are now exploiting a Gricean point. A retreat can be informative or strategic opacity. The same “utterance” can carry different intentions. Move 10. GRICE: d4. Here is the prepared assertion. I contest the centre. RICHARDSON: Nbd7. I meet it with development, not capture. I allow the tension to persist. Move 11. GRICE: c4. I expand. I press your centre from the side. Another implicature: I may drive you into cramped replies. RICHARDSON: c6. I support d5 ideas and give my queen’s bishop a route. I am keeping my options. Move 12. GRICE: Nc3. I add weight to d5 and e4. I continue to speak “centrally.” RICHARDSON: Bb7. I develop and aim at your e4 from the long diagonal. I announce a future argument against your thesis. Move 13. GRICE: a3. I ask your b4 possibility to show itself. I pre-empt a nuisance. RICHARDSON: Re8. I match your Re1 with my own. Symmetry again: we agree that the e-file is where meaning will accumulate. Move 14. GRICE: Ba2. I retreat the bishop to keep the diagonal alive and avoid exchange. I value the long-term conversation over a local scuffle. RICHARDSON: Bf8. I retreat my bishop, clearing g7 perhaps, or making room for …g6. Again: an apparently “unhelpful” move that is still cooperative because it preserves coherence. GRICE: So far, we are both cooperating maximally in the higher goal, and minimally in the lower goal: neither of us is trying to help the other win. Move 15. GRICE: Bg5. I pin your knight to your queen, suggesting: your defensive web has a node. RICHARDSON: h6. I challenge the pin. I ask you to justify the bishop’s posture. Move 16. GRICE: Bh4. I keep the claim alive. I do not exchange; I maintain the pressure. RICHARDSON: g5. I drive you further. A stronger demand for clarification, bordering on rudeness, but still legal. Move 17. GRICE: Bg3. I retreat again. I accept your local dominance on the kingside squares, but I keep my bishop pair. RICHARDSON: Ng6. I reposition the knight and open lines for my pieces. I am preparing to contest your centre later, not now. Move 18. GRICE: Rc1. I bring a rook to the c-file, aiming at c6/c7. I diversify threats: conversation now has two topics. RICHARDSON: Bg7. I complete development, harmonizing pieces. I prepare …exd4 or …c5. I still refuse to resolve the central tension. Move 19. GRICE: b4. I expand on the queenside. I threaten b5, gaining space and cramping. RICHARDSON: Nh4. A sudden knight jump. You attack my bishop on g3 and hint at f3 weaknesses. This is a conversational turn: a surprise topic shift, but not a non sequitur, because it exploits my prior pawn advances. GRICE: That is precisely where “cooperation” and “competition” rub. A surprise is not a violation if it is derivable from shared context. Move 20. GRICE: Bh2. I retreat. I refuse to trade my bishop for your knight, keeping long diagonals. RICHARDSON: Nf4. You occupy f4. You attack h3 and g2 lines. You are now not merely replying; you are shaping the game’s grammar. Move 21. GRICE: Bxf4. I capture. I decide: I will simplify the sentence, reduce ambiguity by exchanging the intruding piece. RICHARDSON: exf4. You recapture with the e-pawn. You accept structural damage for open lines. You are declaring: activity outweighs elegance. Move 22. GRICE: d5. I strike the centre at the moment your pawn structure has shifted. This is a timed move: like choosing the right moment to make an implicature unavoidable. RICHARDSON: cxd5. You capture. You refuse to be pushed off the file of legality: you answer force with force. Move 23. GRICE: exd5. I recapture. I restore a pawn to d5, installing a new fact in the centre. RICHARDSON: Rxe1. You exchange rooks on e1. You remove one of my instruments. A conversational move that says: let us reduce the channels through which you can speak. Move 24. GRICE: Qxe1. I recapture with the queen. I accept the exchange and keep material balance, but now my queen is more exposed. RICHARDSON: Ne5. You centralize the knight, attack c4 and f3, and aim toward d3. You place a piece where it “means” multiple threats at once. Move 25. GRICE: Nxe5. I capture the knight. I cut off the multiplicity. I choose clarity at the cost of giving you a recapture that may open lines. RICHARDSON: dxe5. You recapture with the d-pawn, opening the d-file and releasing your dark-squared bishop. GRICE: And now we can say what it means to say “Grice wins,” even before the last move is played. It can mean: (i) I eventually deliver checkmate, the official terminal speech-act; (ii) I force resignation, which is a mutually recognized inference that mate is unavoidable; (iii) I win on time, which is victory by meta-rule rather than by position; or (iv) I win because you blunder—yet even then the higher cooperative goal is still achieved: we have jointly produced a complete game whose outcome can be recognized as outcome. RICHARDSON: And if you win, it is not because I cooperated with your plan. It is because I cooperated with chess. GRICE: Today is not conversation of three but of four. Bridge has the decency to admit that. Two partnerships, two private channels of understanding, and one public stream of bids and cards. WILLOUGHBY: And the rule that makes it bearable: we cooperate with each other more than we cooperate with them, while still cooperating with them enough to keep the game legal, intelligible, and finishable. CHARLESWORTH: Our goal is straightforward: score more. And to do it by reading you, not by reading our own hopes. PAYNE: And to make you misdescribe your own hands, if we can manage it. GRICE: My goal is to win. Willoughby’s goal is to win. Charlesworth’s goal is to win. Payne’s goal is to win. Our higher, shared goal is to play bridge: to keep to turn-taking, to obey the auction, to follow suit, to accept that meaning in bridge is conventional and therefore answerable. Bridge is a cooperative venture that contains a competitive venture. WILLOUGHBY: And unlike chess, one cannot win alone. One must win with a partner’s mind. GRICE: Exactly. “Grice and Willoughby win” is not two victories added; it is one joint success measured against another joint success. It means: our partnership’s inferences, agreements, and risk-management outperformed theirs, within the constraints of lawful signalling. CHARLESWORTH: Deal, then. Spades are sharp today. Move 1 (North: Grice). GRICE: One spade. I do not merely announce a suit; I propose a plan, and I invite Willoughby to infer range and shape. Move 2 (East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Two hearts. Overcall. I try to steal the conversational floor: I make your claim about spades compete with my claim about hearts. Move 3 (South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Two spades. This is not echo; it is support. I tell you I heard you, and I am willing to build. Move 4 (West: Payne). PAYNE: Three hearts. Preemptive pressure. I raise not because I love hearts, but because I want to compress your options. GRICE: Note the bridge fact: Payne’s move is competitive toward us but cooperative toward Charlesworth: he enlarges their joint message. Partnership is the unit of meaning. Move 5 (North: Grice). GRICE: Three spades. I show further strength and fit. I also refuse to be bullied by their volume. Move 6 (East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Four hearts. He commits. This is an attempt to set the contract high enough that our method of defence must be precise. Move 7 (South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Four spades. The competitive raise. He judges that our spade fit can outrun their heart fit. Move 8 (West: Payne). PAYNE: Pass. A pause can be a move. He declines to sacrifice yet, holding open the possibility of defence. Move 9 (North: Grice). GRICE: Pass. I accept Willoughby’s judgement as captaincy. Cooperation within partnership means sometimes declining to “help” when help would only confuse. Move 10 (East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Pass. Move 11 (West: Payne). PAYNE: Pass. GRICE: Contract: four spades by Willoughby. Now the auction ends and the other conversation begins: the play, where information is partly public (cards) and partly inferential (distribution, entries, tempo). Move 12 (Opening lead: West, Payne). PAYNE: Lead: heart (a small one). He leads partner’s bid suit: a cooperative move inside their partnership, and an attempt to cash hearts before we can draw trumps. Move 13 (Dummy: North, Grice). GRICE: I table the dummy. This is the bridge equivalent of making one mind public: my cards become shared workbench for Willoughby and a visible target for our opponents. Move 14 (Trick 1, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Plays low heart from hand. Move 15 (Trick 1, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Covers with the queen of hearts. He asserts: “we have immediate winners; do not dawdle.” Move 16 (Trick 1, North: Grice). GRICE: Duck in dummy. We concede the trick to preserve entries later. In bridge, losing can be cooperative with winning. Move 17 (Trick 2 lead, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Continues hearts. He presses the same line: force declarer to spend resources. Move 18 (Trick 2, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Takes with the ace of hearts. He decides that further ducking is now too expensive. Move 19 (Trick 3 lead, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Leads a trump (spade) from hand. The standard cooperative plan: draw their trumps to make our side-suit work. Move 20 (Trick 3, West: Payne). PAYNE: Follows suit, low spade. Move 21 (Trick 3, North: Grice). GRICE: Plays a higher spade from dummy to test the lie. I supply Willoughby with count information by the pattern of play, not by any illicit signal. Move 22 (Trick 3, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Shows out or follows? He follows low. Good: trumps are dividing tolerably, which shifts the goal from survival to overtrick. Move 23 (Trick 4 lead, North: Grice, at Willoughby’s instruction). GRICE: I return a spade to continue drawing trumps. Here cooperation is literal: my hand is now an extension of his plan. Move 24 (Trick 4, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Plays a higher trump, trying to create a later promotion. Move 25 (Trick 4, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Wins the trick, then pauses. GRICE: This pause is part of the conversation. In bridge, tempo is meaning without words: it declares that the next decision is close, and closeness invites the opponents to infer wrong things. Move 26 (Trick 5 lead, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Leads a low diamond toward dummy. He is setting up the side suit, attempting to establish winners. Move 27 (Trick 5, West: Payne). PAYNE: Plays low diamond smoothly. He refuses to confess where strength lies. Move 28 (Trick 5, North: Grice). GRICE: Inserts the diamond king from dummy. A forcing test: if it holds, diamonds are ours; if it loses, we learn who has the ace. Move 29 (Trick 5, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Takes with the ace of diamonds. He wins and, crucially, gains the lead at the moment when hearts may still be a threat. Move 30 (Trick 6 lead, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Plays a heart again. He tries to cash the suit while he still can. Move 31 (Trick 6, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Discards a small club. He protects trumps and accepts that the heart trick is gone. Move 32 (Trick 6, West: Payne). PAYNE: Adds another heart, completing the cashing attempt. Move 33 (Trick 6, North: Grice). GRICE: Ruffs in dummy with a trump. This is the hinge: we turn their aggressive suit into our entry. Move 34 (Trick 7 lead, North: Grice). GRICE: Leads a club from dummy. We now switch topic. Bridge rewards the ability to change the conversational subject at exactly the right time. Move 35 (Trick 7, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Plays low club. Move 36 (Trick 7, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Plays the ace of clubs, then another club. He tries to set up a long club or force out an honour. Move 37 (Trick 8, West: Payne). PAYNE: Follows, then wins with the king (or covers appropriately). He interrupts the plan, taking a crucial tempo. Move 38 (Trick 9 lead, West: Payne). PAYNE: Plays a trump back. A defensive cooperative move with Charlesworth: cut dummy ruffs, remove declarer’s control. Move 39 (Trick 9, North: Grice). GRICE: Follows with a small spade. Move 40 (Trick 9, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Wins the trump continuation or follows; either way, the defence has succeeded in reducing dummy’s ruffing power. Move 41 (Trick 10 lead, East: Charlesworth). CHARLESWORTH: Tries a diamond through again, aiming at our remaining entries. Move 42 (Trick 10, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Takes with a diamond honour, then immediately returns to trumps from hand to regain control. Move 43 (Trick 11, West: Payne). PAYNE: Shows the last trump or follows low; trumps are now nearly exhausted. Move 44 (Trick 12 lead, South: Willoughby). WILLOUGHBY: Cashes established spade winner(s), then takes the now-good diamond king (if it stood earlier) or promotes a club. Move 45 (Trick 13). GRICE: We take the last trick with a top spade, and the hand ends. GRICE: Now what does it mean to say “Grice and Willoughby win”? It does not mean I out-thought all three others. It means that across two hands joined by convention, we managed a single coherent policy: we exchanged just enough information in the auction to reach the best contract, and then, in play, we coordinated timing, entries, and suit-development better than Charlesworth and Payne coordinated their attack. The opponents cooperated excellently too: they led from agreed suit, they pressed hearts, they returned trumps at the correct moment. Their cooperation is part of our victory: without their competent play, our success would not count as the right kind of success. To win at bridge is to defeat another partnership while jointly sustaining the practice that makes partnership possible. Vignette The DEMIJOHNS (North Oxford, 1962): Grice (captain, opening batsman), Latham, Crowe, Hesketh, Pritchard, Ellwood, Fanshawe, Markham, Tarrant, Swithinbank, Boldero. The BARNACLES: Charlesworth (captain), Payne, Redmayne, Kersey, Holroyd, Mellers, Standish, Whitaker, Pringle, Ashdown, Verrall. The field is set on the St John’s sports ground: the wicket square in the middle, the sightscreen at one end, the pavilion and tea-tables off to the side, a rope boundary that is more moral than physical. Behind the bowler’s arm the sightscreen makes a pale rectangle; behind the batsman’s back the keeper squats; slips crouch like italic letters to the right of the keeper; gully is a loose parenthesis; point and cover are the grammar of prevention; mid-off and mid-on are the two sentries of straightness; fine leg and third man are the custodians of deflections; long-on and long-off are the punishers of ambition. Everyone is placed so that what counts as a “mistake” will have a witness. GRICE: Today is conversation of twenty-two. Each of us has a private goal, and each private goal is nested inside the cooperative goal of keeping the game going: lawful bowling, fair fielding, honest scoring, and the shared willingness to let a small hard ball decide reputations. CHARLESWORTH: Our private goal is to beat you. Your private goal is to beat us. But the higher goal is that the match becomes a match, not a quarrel. PAYNE: And that requires cooperation between opponents: we must give one another chances, and then take them. GRICE: My private goal, as opening batsman, is to make runs without giving chances. My goal as captain is to turn eleven private competences into one joint agency. Each Demijohn has his own subordinate goal: Latham wants to survive at the other end; Crowe wants to score quickly without collapse; Hesketh wants to hold the middle; Pritchard wants wickets with the new ball; Ellwood wants to keep tidily; Fanshawe wants to cut off the single; Markham wants to bowl the tight over; Tarrant wants the sharp catch; Swithinbank wants to turn the ball late; Boldero wants to finish the innings with a spell that breaks resistance. CHARLESWORTH: Likewise for us. Payne wants early swing; Redmayne wants to bully; Kersey wants to anchor; Holroyd wants to accelerate; Mellers wants wickets; Standish wants to field close and chirp; Whitaker wants a run-out; Pringle wants control; Ashdown wants late movement; Verrall wants a last stand. My goal as captain is to arrange their competencies into a plan that makes your mistakes more likely. Move 1. Charlesworth wins the toss and chooses to field. He is cooperating with the conditions: a little morning moisture, a ball that might do something, and an opening partnership he hopes to interrupt early. Move 2. Grice and Latham walk out. Their cooperation is immediate and silent: who will take strike, who will call, who will refuse the foolish single. Move 3. Payne takes the new ball from the pavilion end. His goal is to speak first: to make the pitch say something to Grice before Grice makes the score speak. Move 4. First over: Payne bowls full; Grice plays forward, dead-bats, refuses the temptation of flourish. Grice’s private goal is restraint; the team goal is to avoid an early wicket that would weaken everyone’s later confidence. Move 5. Second over: Redmayne from the sightscreen end, shorter, testing the splice. Latham fends, survives. His private goal is to be a reliable partner rather than a second star. Move 6. Payne over again: a hint of swing away. Grice lets it go. The Barnacles cooperate among themselves by holding slips and gully, making the leave risky by implication: “We are waiting.” Move 7. Redmayne strays on the pads; Grice clips to midwicket and calls a sharp single. This is cooperative talk in running form: call, trust, respond. Fanshawe fields cleanly and returns hard; no overthrows. Even opponents cooperate in competence. Move 8. Payne adjusts the field: one slip back, cover tighter, mid-on straighter. His goal is to change the likelihood of particular meanings: to make the straight drive dangerous and the cut expensive. Move 9. Grice responds by playing late to third man for two. He exploits the field’s declared shape. Move 10. Latham edges just short of second slip where Standish dives but cannot hold. Chance. In cricket, “chance” is the name for what happens when one side momentarily fails its cooperative duty of execution. Move 11. Charlesworth sets a deeper gully, signalling: we expect the edge again. This is a public plan, not a private hint. Move 12. Grice takes the first boundary: a controlled cover drive off Redmayne when the ball is overpitched. Four. His private goal is now also a public one: to change the bowlers’ mood. Move 13. The Barnacles change bowling: Mellers replaces Redmayne to alter tempo and angle. Cooperative captaincy is the art of switching speakers without losing the thread. Move 14. Mellers bowls off-cutters; Grice reads the seam and plays with soft hands. He is cooperating with the pitch, not merely opposing the bowler. Move 15. Latham finally nicks one; Ellwood, the Demijohns’ keeper in the next innings but now an observer, winces as Payne takes the catch at first slip. Latham out. The Barnacles’ cooperative goal, inside their partnership, is realised: wicket-taking. Move 16. Crowe arrives at number three. His private goal is to turn caution into scoring; the team goal is to keep Grice batting while not freezing. Move 17. Grice and Crowe run hard, converting a push to cover into two because Whitaker’s pickup is a fraction slow. A run exists only if both batsmen cooperate in faith and speed. Move 18. Charlesworth brings on Pringle for control. The field tightens: ring fielders in, singles rationed. Their goal is to make impatience the most likely error. Move 19. Crowe refuses rationing by lofting over mid-off; it nearly carries to Holroyd but drops safe. Two. Risk as a cooperative calculation: he takes it because Grice’s presence at the other end lowers the cost of his own failure. Move 20. Grice reaches fifty with a glance fine, exploiting fine leg’s depth. The Barnacles accept the applause. Even opponents cooperate with ceremony: the game acknowledges milestones to keep the practice civil. Move 21. Mid-innings acceleration: Grice and Crowe rotate strike, forcing fielders to throw and bowlers to reset. The Barnacles’ cooperative defence is now about preventing the flood rather than avoiding the drip. Move 22. Crowe misjudges a slower ball from Pringle; skies it. Tarrant at mid-on runs in and takes it cleanly. Crowe out. The Barnacles’ fielding cooperation converts your partner’s ambition into their advantage. Move 23. Hesketh comes in and plays the straightest possible bat. His private goal is to restore calm, his team goal is to let Grice continue shaping the innings. Move 24. Grice declares a new intention by act: he cuts loose. Two boundaries in the over off Mellers, one through extra cover, one clipped between midwicket and square leg. This is what captaincy looks like from the crease: not speech but timing. Move 25. End of Demijohns’ innings: 162 all out (Grice 78, Hesketh 19, Pritchard 16; Payne 4 for 32, Mellers 3 for 28). Tea is taken. Both sides cooperate in the pause: the game is a day, not just a contest. After tea the Barnacles chase. Their private goals rearrange: Kersey’s goal is to bat time; Holroyd’s to score; Payne’s to strike late. The Demijohns’ cooperative goal becomes unified: wickets plus containment. Grice sets the field: two slips for Pritchard, a gully for Fanshawe, point tight, cover saving one, mid-off and mid-on in, fine leg back, third man fine. He is telling his own side where the likely meanings will appear: edge, mis-hit, forced drive. The Barnacles begin brightly, then lose wickets to Pritchard’s movement and Swithinbank’s late turn. A run-out engineered by Fanshawe’s direct hit removes Holroyd when a risky single is called without full mutual consent: the fatal breakdown of cooperation between batters. Verrall fights, but Boldero’s final spell closes it. The Barnacles: 141 all out. The Demijohns win by 21 runs. To say the Demijohns win means: eleven people, each with his own private appetite for glory, have managed to subordinate that appetite to a joint plan often enough, and executed it cleanly enough, that the score becomes the public record of their better coordination. It also means the Barnacles cooperated properly too: they provided resistance worthy of a first home win, and thus made the victory count as victory rather than mere default. Football today - Vignette Corpus (1933): Grice (centre-forward), Pemberton (inside-right), Langford (inside-left), Morley (right-wing), Ashford (left-wing), Shropshire (right-half), Denham (left-half), Caldecott (centre-half), Lytton (right-back), Seddon (left-back), Harcourt (goalkeeper). Christ Church (1933): Charlesworth (centre-forward), Payne (inside-left), Redmayne (inside-right), Kersey (right-wing), Holroyd (left-wing), Mellers (right-half), Standish (centre-half), Whitaker (left-half), Pringle (right-back), Ashdown (left-back), Verrall (goalkeeper). Move 1. GRICE: Before the whistle, a remark about the “field.” A cricket field is an argument in positions: it is built by deliberate placement, and it stays still until captaincy re-writes it. A football field is a rectangle that refuses to be rewritten; the “field” is not where men stand but where they run. Cricket’s field is chosen; football’s field is occupied. Move 2. Referee signals: kick-off to Corpus. Corpus’s team goal is simple: score more goals than Christ Church while staying within the laws; Christ Church’s team goal is the same. But the cooperative goal beneath the rivalry is that twenty-two men agree to let the match be decided by play rather than by grievance. Move 3. GRICE (private goal): I want chances, not merely touches. As centre-forward, my job is not to “participate” but to convert. My expectation is that Morley and Ashford deliver width, and that Pemberton and Langford supply through balls into the channel I am already running. Move 4. CHARLESWORTH (private goal): he wants to do the same to us; he expects Payne and Redmayne to feed him, and Kersey/Holroyd to stretch our backs. Move 5. SHROPSHIRE (private goal): as right-half, his job is expectation in defensive form: anticipate their left side, spoil Payne’s turns, and then, on the regain, give me the ball early. His “cooperation with Grice” is mostly negative: preventing Christ Church from making me irrelevant by starving us of possession. Move 6. Early pattern: Standish (centre-half, Christ Church) steps up tight to Langford to break the inside-left channel. This is their cooperative plan: block supply before it reaches me. Move 7. Caldecott (centre-half, Corpus) answers by dropping slightly and switching play to Morley. In football, unlike cricket, you cannot “set a field” to trap the ball; you must move the ball to move the field. Move 8. Morley takes on Ashdown down the right. Morley’s private goal is to cross early; his team goal is to force their back line to turn and face its own goal, which creates the brief disorder a centre-forward lives on. Move 9. First cross: Morley curls it in. Verrall comes. Grice attacks it. Pringle rises and heads clear. Here cooperation is brute coordination: defender and keeper share the same expectation about flight and timing. Move 10. Grice’s point (half to himself): I never was one for football. Cricket lets you build your innings by patience and convention; football asks you to improvise under constant theft. It is a fair game, but it feels less “gentlemanly” because the interruptions are continuous. Move 11. Christ Church counter: Whitaker finds Holroyd on the left. Holroyd’s private goal is to isolate Lytton and cross low. His expectation is that Charlesworth arrives between our centre-half and left-back. Move 12. Shropshire slides across, delays Holroyd, forces him back. That is Shropshire cooperating with the whole Corpus forward line by preventing the sort of sustained pressure that would turn us into defenders all afternoon. Move 13. Corpus regain: Shropshire wins a tackle, and instead of the safe sideways pass he threads it into Pemberton. This is the cooperative “move” that matters: a risk taken on behalf of the striker. Move 14. Pemberton turns, draws Standish, and slips a pass into Grice’s feet. Grice’s expectation is immediate: Langford must run beyond to drag a marker; Ashford must arrive at the far post; Morley must hold width for the second phase. Move 15. Grice lays it off first time to Langford and spins into the box. A small Gricean point: football’s clearest analogue to implicature is the one-two. You “say” a short pass and “mean” the return into space you have not yet occupied. Move 16. Langford returns it. Grice shoots. Verrall saves low. Corner. Move 17. Corner taken by Ashford. Caldecott attacks. Header over. In cricket a miss is a dot ball; in football a miss is a moral event—because the chance was scarce and shared. Move 18. Christ Church respond with tougher marking. Pringle stays touch-tight on Ashford; Ashdown steps into Morley. Their plan is cooperative suffocation: remove the wide men and I become a lone speaker without an audience. Move 19. Corpus adapt: Denham (left-half) begins carrying the ball, drawing Mellers out of shape. Denham’s private goal is to create the diagonal for Ashford; his team goal is to change the site of attack, since the “field” cannot be rearranged except by moving the ball. Move 20. Shropshire again: intercepts Payne’s attempted through pass to Charlesworth. Clears not long, but to feet. That choice is expectation: he assumes we can keep it, which is a vote of confidence in our own cooperation. Move 21. Corpus build: Caldecott to Shropshire to Pemberton. Three passes, one idea: give Grice service before Christ Church can reset. Move 22. Pemberton releases Morley down the right. Morley crosses early and low. Move 23. Grice arrives between Standish and Pringle. He expects the cut-back, not the high ball. He meets it first time. Move 24. Goal for Corpus. 1–0. Grice scores. What “Grice scores” means is not a solitary achievement: it is that eleven men succeeded in producing, under pressure, the one kind of opportunity a centre-forward can complete. Move 25. Christ Church’s expectation shifts: urgency. Payne starts drifting centrally to overload Shropshire and Caldecott. Their cooperative aim is to force our right-half into too much work and then exploit the space behind him. Move 26. Shropshire feels it and does the unglamorous cooperation: he holds position rather than chasing, forcing Payne to play sideways. A defender’s virtue is to make the opponent’s “move” mean less than intended. Move 27. Half-time approaches. Corpus’s team goal becomes two-layered: protect the lead and threaten the second. Christ Church’s becomes: equalise before the match hardens into a one-goal story. Move 28. Second half: Christ Church press. Kersey wins a corner off Seddon. Set-piece. In cricket you can “rest” between balls; in football the pressure is continuous until the whistle. Move 29. Corner swung in. Harcourt punches. The clearance falls to Redmayne, who shoots wide. Even the miss is cooperative: the shot existed because of the press that created the loose ball. Move 30. Grice’s aside: “That’s not cricket” is what we say when a man violates the spirit while keeping the letter. Football is honest in a different way: it never pretends to have time for spirit. It is fair by laws and by the referee, not by leisurely mutual restraint. Move 31. Corpus counter again, the cooperative classic: Ashford carries, waits, then plays inside to Langford. Move 32. Langford slips Grice through. Offside flag. Here is the football difference: the “expectation” includes an official geometry. A forward expects the pass, but must also expect the line. Move 33. Shropshire, again singled out: he wins a hard challenge on Payne and is immediately surrounded by three Christ Church players appealing. He stays quiet, gives the ball to the referee, resets. Cooperation includes accepting the other side’s appeals as part of the shared practice, not as personal hostility. Move 34. Corpus choose control: Morley and Ashford now hold the ball near the corners, drawing fouls, slowing. The team’s cooperative goal is to manage time without turning time-wasting into bad form. Move 35. Christ Church throw everything forward. Standish pushes up, leaving space behind. Move 36. Pemberton recognises it and plays early to Grice. This is expectation as mutual mind-reading: he assumes I will run into the gap without being told. Move 37. Grice runs, takes it in stride, squares it to Ashford. Move 38. Ashford finishes. 2–0 Corpus. Move 39. The match closes with tired tackles, small courtesies, and the shared recognition that, however adversarial it felt, the opponents were partners in producing a result that “counts.” Move 40. Final whistle. Corpus wins 2–0. To say Corpus wins means: within a fixed rectangle that cannot be “set” like a cricket field, eleven men nonetheless created a moving structure of expectation—who will cover, who will supply, who will finish—often enough, and cleanly enough, to produce two successful conclusions (goals) while preventing Christ Church from producing any. It also means Christ Church cooperated in the higher sense: they contested hard but within the laws, making the victory a genuine win rather than a default. St. John’s, 1938 Because I have come to St. John’s under a title that sounds grander than it is, and that is precisely why I like it. “Lecturer,” the College calls me; “probationer,” I call myself, because it has the right taste of the temporary, the conditional, the not-yet. A lecturer at St. John’s in 1938 is a man with duties and no guarantees, a man allowed to do the work in full daylight while still being, institutionally speaking, tried out like a new pen. I had ceased, that same year, to be what Merton would have called me without smiling: a Senior Scholar, a creature of a specific arrangement, with a place in the geometry of Merton Street and a loyalty that felt almost automatic. At Merton I belonged to a world of scholarship as such, to the idea of Merton. At St. John’s I belong to people. Not friends, not yet; but people in the only sense Oxford makes operational: colleagues, pupils, and a governing body that will one day either elect you or quietly forget you. And so I have shifted. I do not mean that I have betrayed Merton, or that I have become suddenly capable of loving a new institution the way one loves a first one. Nothing beats one’s alma mater. Corpus still sits at the bottom of my loyalties like a presupposition: not stated, never denied, always available to be re-activated by a staircase, a quad, a certain turn of light on stone. And I still have that earlier intermission, the Rossall interval after Corpus and before the Harmsworth at Merton, when one feels half exiled and half liberated, and begins to realise that Oxford is not the whole of England, merely the part that insists on being remembered. But St. John’s is different. It is different because it is, as everyone keeps reminding me by their expectations, a house. A house in which the fellows run the place, dine up on their dais, and then descend and behave as if descending were an act of modesty rather than the end of a performance. I have been admitted, by virtue of my lectureship, to their rituals: I dine at High Table, I sit among them in the Senior Common Room, I am, for the first time, seen officially as teaching staff, not merely as an ornament attached to the word “scholar.” The dais, I confess, gave me an odd pleasure. At Corpus, and certainly at Merton, I had looked at the High Table as an undergraduate looks at it: with the mixture of curiosity and resignation one reserves for any obvious hierarchy. One sits below and learns, without being told, what it means to be “up.” At St. John’s, I am now up there, and I can see the undergraduates from above, and I can see them enjoying the view, rather, with that faintly ironical delight young men take in watching their betters eat. They do not know yet that the view is mutual. They think they are looking at authority; I am looking at my responsibilities, arranged in rows. And that, in 1938, is what the lectureship is: responsibility before recognition. In the Oxford system the college lectureship is often the prelude to being elected a fellow, and fellowship is the real ontology here. A fellow has a vote, a seat on the governing body, a durable place in the College’s self-description. A lecturer has work, and the work is the test. The work is also intimate in a way the title does not reveal. As a bachelor lecturer I live in College. They give me rooms, not as a luxury, but because my primary duty is availability: tutorials, yes, but also the pastoral business that nobody advertises as philosophical and yet occupies half one’s attention. You are meant to be found. You are meant to be the person a young man can knock for, whether the topic is Aristotle or despair. One begins to see, very quickly, why Oxford prefers its teachers to be resident: the system runs on interruption. I have a few tutees already, and I can already see the peculiar variety of minds the College attracts. There is Alec Somerville, who writes with the confidence of a man who believes every sentence is already a conclusion; I spend most of our hour persuading him that an argument is not improved by being announced. There is Peter Allingham, quieter, almost too polite, who has the dangerous habit of understanding a point so quickly that he fails to show his working, and then cannot defend it when pressed. And there is Joan Farrar, one of the bright ones in the small cohort allowed into these rooms and conversations, who has the irritating virtue of asking exactly the question you were hoping not to be asked, and then waiting in silence for you to produce something better than a performance. They call me “Sir” in tutorials, and it still feels faintly comic. I am on probation. I am Grice on probation, and the probation is not moral but professional: can I teach, can I carry the burden, can I be the sort of man the College wants to keep. I do not know what the future will bring. That is part of what makes the year sharp. One lives by term, and one’s status is, in a sense, renewed by term, as if the College were constantly asking itself whether one is worth the candles. Yet I find myself liking it. More than liking it, in fact: beginning to feel my loyalty shift in the only way loyalty shifts honestly, by habit. Merton begins to feel like where I was; St. John’s begins to feel like where I am. The names in my head change accordingly. At Merton one talks, naturally, of the great senior figures as if they were part of the landscape. Here, at St. John’s, the landscape is different, and the philosophical weather changes with it. I find myself thinking of the men whose ways of talking will matter to me: the ones who can make an undergraduate sentence either live or die by a single question. I am not yet sure which names will last, but I already hear, in the SCR, the way an ordinary example can be turned into a thesis, and I suspect I shall spend a life trying to say exactly what that turning consists in. And then, at the end of this last term, there is the quiet fact that I have done my best. I have gone up the dais. I have eaten the dinners, worn the gown, sat among the fellows as if I belonged there, and then returned to my rooms to prepare for a tutorial as if nothing in the evening had been ceremony at all. I have, without noticing it, begun to think of “my” College and meant St. John’s when I said it. That is the dangerous bit. That is the bit that makes one, suddenly, susceptible to election. Still, nothing beats the love for one’s alma mater. Corpus remains the old loyalty, the first attachment, the place where the whole Oxford business first took hold. But St. John’s is different: it is not where I became a philosopher, but where I am being made into a don. And probation, for all its uncertainty, has one consoling feature. It makes you grateful for what you have, because you know it might not be renewed. Michaelmas, 1947 Because Today the word is not Lecturer but University Lecturer, and the word does not merely rename me; it relocates me. In 1938 the College could call me Lecturer and I could call myself “on probation” with a grin, because the job was still, in the right sense, local: St John’s, rooms, tutorials, the clean intimacy of being answerable to a small society that watched you eat at High Table and then pretended not to be watching. In Michaelmas 1947 I am answerable to something that has no High Table, no staircase, and no face: the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy, which is to say the University’s way of making philosophy into a public requirement. The appointment feels, at once, like a compliment and like a contract. A Common University Fund lectureship is not merely more stipend; it is more stipulation. Sixteen lectures in the academic year. Eight in one term, eight in another, and one term left free in the way Oxford leaves things free: by describing a gap in the timetable as if it were leisure rather than the only chance you have to do anything that isn’t immediately demanded. The word “stint” is the only honest one for it. You do your stint. You fulfil it. You are, for those hours and those weeks, an officer of the University rather than a man with pupils. And the University, unlike a college, likes visibility. These are formal public lectures, open to all members of the University, and therefore open in the way that changes a man’s voice. A tutorial is a conversation with a known mind. A lecture is an address to an unknown distribution of minds, most of whom you will never meet, and some of whom will attend only because they are supposed to be seen attending. The list will not call it a seminar, even if that is what I prefer; it will call it a class, and it will put it down as CLASS, with the venue stated with a bureaucrat’s indifference to atmosphere: Examination Schools, or the Examination Hall. The irony is thick enough to spread on bread. You spend your early Oxford life being examined in that building, and you end up being scheduled in it, as if the building is still marking you, only now the mark is a timetable. I can feel the atmosphere change at once. In College I was a tutor who happened to lecture. Now I am, officially, a lecturer who happens also to tutor. The tutorial relation at St John’s remains, of course, and I remain a fellow of the College; but the balance of obligation has shifted. I am now dependent not merely on St John’s affection and internal arrangements, but on the Sub-Faculty’s expectations, and through that, on the larger Literae Humaniores machine that quietly governs what counts as “philosophy” in Oxford at all. It is not that I dislike the public lecture as such. What I dislike is the false picture people have of it. They imagine the lecturer declaiming, as if philosophy were a kind of secular sermon. They imagine one’s thought arriving finished, packaged, and distributed in an hour. I have endured too many such performances as a scholar to be tempted by the style. At Corpus I sat through lectures that seemed designed to make you grateful when they ended. At Merton I endured, with the dutiful patience of a Senior Scholar, the kind of lecture that makes you feel you have been punished for wanting to learn. The commoner, of course, never complains. The commoner attends or does not attend, and does not feel his soul at stake. The scholar, perversely, feels obligated to be improved, and therefore suffers when improvement is not forthcoming. So today, with the appointment fresh, I make myself a promise that is part vow and part threat. I will do better than the lecturers I suffered. I will not treat a roomful of young minds as if they were merely bodies to be seated and dismissed. I will not fill the hour with portentous abstraction and call it “depth.” If I have to stand at the front of a class in the Schools, I will at least make the thing worth hearing. And I know, already, what I want to make worth hearing. Meaning. Not as a banner, and certainly not as something corny to hang from the dreaming spires, but as something more precise and more urgent: meaning as the civil link between minds, the way a thought becomes accountable in speech, and the way speech becomes more than noise by being made answerable to intention and uptake. I would like, if I can, to make “meaning” audible as a discipline rather than a topic, so that when someone says a sentence in Oxford he begins to feel the difference between what he has said and what he has managed, between the words and the work they do in a practice. The question, immediately, is how to do this under the University’s format. Eight lectures a term means you cannot wander; you cannot rely on the tutorial’s luxury of interruption and repair. In tutorials you can afford to be wrong out loud, because the pupil is there to correct you by resisting. In a public lecture you must build the resistance into the structure, or you will simply talk, and talking without resistance is the quickest way to become a bore. I have always done best when I can do things jointly, in company, in the sort of seminar where another mind can throw a spanner into your neatness and thereby improve it. The University calls it CLASS; I prefer to make it, as much as the format allows, a joint enterprise, even if the jointness has to be staged by questions, objections, and the deliberate use of examples that force the audience to think rather than to record. So I sit down, newly appointed, and begin deciding, with a seriousness that is almost domestic, what I can sustain for decades without turning into one of the men I once resented. Aristotle will have to appear, because Oxford will not let you be a philosopher without an acquaintance with Aristotle’s gravity; and Kant will appear, because Oxford will not let you be moral without someone German watching you. I will have to speak of the moderns too, and I find myself thinking of the names that already circulate with their own authority: Frege, whose sentences make English look lazy; Russell, who can make an undergraduate believe that clarity is a form of heroism; and Wittgenstein, who makes you feel that philosophy is either a disease or a cure, depending on which paragraph you have just read. I hear Austin’s voice in the background as well, already forming that kind of impatience with theory that is itself a theory in denial. But the centre, for me, is not any one name. It is the method: take what people say, take what they mean, and show that the space between them is not an embarrassment but the whole point. The University, by giving me a lecturing stint, has given me a platform. St John’s gave me rooms and pupils; the University gives me a hall and an audience. The burden is heavier, certainly. Yet the prospect is exhilarating in a dry way. If I must give sixteen lectures a year, then I can at least try to make each one an honest piece of work, not a display. I can try to make the public lecture approximate the virtues of the tutorial: responsibility, clarity, and the sense that a man’s words are not ornaments but commitments. And so, on this day, I find myself unexpectedly pleased. Not pleased in the triumphant manner, but pleased in the way one is pleased when an institution finally names one accurately. I am no longer on probation. I am, by title and by burden, a University Lecturer. I have been moved from the College’s private economy into the University’s public one. I shall do my stint. I shall do it, if I can, without becoming pompous. And if, from time to time, “meaning” manages to take on, in the air above the High Street, the status of something worth caring about, that will be enough. St John’s, 1939 Because I have acquired a title, and with it the peculiar obligation of being exact about what the title is. H. P. Grice, Fellow of St John’s College. Not “lecturer,” not “probationer,” not “junior anything,” but Fellow. The word matters because Oxford makes words do legal work. A Fellow is not merely a man who teaches; he is part of the College’s foundation, a member of the Governing Body, a vote, a constituent atom in the corporate person that owns the place, endows the posts, elects its successors, and pretends, with a straight face, that all this is done by tradition rather than by men with preferences. And the accompanying phrase, written with that characteristic Oxford conjunctive that makes everything sound both grand and vague, is: Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy. I notice at once that the heart of the description is not the tutoring, but the “in philosophy.” Tutoring, by itself, is merely a method. The preposition is the metaphysically respectable part. It tells you, if you care to attend to it, what I am for. Oxford is full of men who are tutors without being “in” anything except the College itself. They are in Classics, in History, in some dignified branch of humaniores that can be defended by a reading list and a statue. To be in philosophy is to occupy a subject that is always in danger of being treated as an afterthought or a nuisance. So I take “in philosophy” seriously, as if it were a badge and a burden together. It suggests, with an implicature so strong Oxford almost never states it outright, that one is now expected not merely to receive philosophy but to guard it. The temptation, of course, is to call me a “tutorial fellow,” which is a phrase I have already heard whispered with the complacency of those who think it sorts the world neatly. I dislike it. Not because it is false, but because of what it carries with it. It implicates that there are “mere fellows,” as if a fellowship could ever be mere; and it implicates that the tutorial work is the essence of one’s fellowship rather than a function of it. Worse, it invites the conclusion that a man who is not a tutorial fellow is not doing anything, which is the sort of implicature Oxford produces casually and then lives by for decades. There are, after all, different sorts of fellows. There are professorial fellows, and then there are fellows who are simply fellows, elected by the College for reasons that include, but are not exhausted by, teaching. There are men who have their own money, or their own external appointment, or their own eccentric usefulness, and the College is pleased to have them as names at High Table and votes when needed, without expecting them to grind weekly through essays. One might give an example, but one should not, because naming tends to turn a logical point into gossip, and I have always preferred the logical point. So I will insist on the official description as the only one that is both accurate and decently explicit: Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy. If someone wants to shorten it, let him shorten it by dropping “tutor” rather than by dropping “philosophy.” Titles are not mere ornaments; they are the College’s way of saying what it expects you to do and what it is prepared to be held responsible for. This, then, is my first term as a full Fellow. The great change is that the probation has ended and the incorporation has begun. In 1938 I was dining at High Table by courtesy of function; in 1939 I dine there by right of membership. The difference is not in the food, which remains Oxford food, but in the metaphysics of the seating. I sit, now, not as a man on trial, but as a man counted. When matters come before the Governing Body, I am no longer merely a voice in conversation; I am a vote in the College’s will. One should not, perhaps, use “will” in Oxford without remembering how easily it becomes something like a group appetite. Still, the fact stands: I belong to the College’s decision-making machinery. And because I am, at this moment, still a bachelor, I am also resident. Oxford’s domestic metaphysics are brutally simple. A bachelor fellow may live in College; a married fellow must, as it were, be exported. At present I live on a staircase as if the staircase were a natural habitat, and I find that I like the arrangement more than I should. It suits the tutorial requirement of accessibility: one can be found. One can be knocked for. One can be, in the College’s gentle phrase, of use. I walk through the courts and I feel, as I have felt at Clifton, at Corpus, at Rossall, at Merton, the same institutional sensation: that one is being shaped by an enclosed life with rules that do not need to be stated because they are embedded in architecture. St John’s has, in addition, that extraordinary indulgence which it insists on treating as ordinary: the Grove. The Grove is not merely garden; it is a declaration that the College intends to be large in both space and self-regard. They even have a Keeper of the Grove, which is the sort of title that makes you wonder whether the Grove is being guarded against the undergraduates or against time. I take to walking there because walking is the one permissible way, in Oxford, to appear to be thinking without having to say you are thinking. The Grove is a place where one can rehearse an argument without being overheard, and yet still feel, by proximity to the College, that one is not abandoning one’s duties. I think, too, about the tutorial idea itself, now that I am on the other side of it. As an undergraduate I endured tutorials, and I endured, in particular, the long yawns and occasional ejaculations of Hardie, the only philosophy tutor I ever properly experienced as a tutee. There was, for one term when he was away, a substitute who later complained to Hardie that I was obstinate to the point of perversity, which I take as a compliment provided one distinguishes perversity from stupidity. The point, however, is that I now find myself in Hardie’s position, and I see what I did not see then: that the tutorial is the only place Oxford forces a mind to show its joints. A lecture can be endured like weather. A tutorial cannot. A tutorial is a demand for responsibility, and responsibility is the only genuine moral concept Oxford teaches without acknowledging it is teaching. So my first term begins with the novelty of the title, the comfort of the rooms, and the sobering sense that I am no longer merely the recipient of philosophy but one of its local custodians. I am, if one wants to be grand about it, a small guardian of what Boethius called consolation; except that Oxford does not console, it corrects, and it calls correction a kindness. And then, later in the same year, the world changes its tone. September arrives, and with it the declaration of war, and the future becomes suddenly less like a career and more like a blank. It is at that point, preparing to enlist, that I take a kind of internal inventory of what I have managed so far as Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy. I have had the beginnings of pupils who will not, I suspect, remain merely pupils in the ordinary Oxford sense. There is a young man of combative brightness, Antony Flew, whom I have begun to tutor, and whose appetite for disagreement is so strong that one must teach him, almost as a moral lesson, that refutation is not the only intellectual virtue. And there is Strawson, the special case: he arrived to read English, then migrated into philosophy, and I found myself tutoring him for the Logic paper, watching him handle an example as if it were already a thesis waiting to be released. His arrangements are, because of wartime necessity, accelerated; the University makes special provisions, and he takes his degree early, in January 1940, as if Oxford itself were rushing its own products off the line before the world interrupts again. It is strange to think of all this while putting papers in order and preparing to join the RNVR. One has barely settled into the exactitude of one’s new title when the country produces a new title of its own, and expects you to wear it. Yet the Oxford title remains, in my head, the one that matters in the way a philosopher means matters. Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy. Not because it flatters me, but because it tells me what I am supposed to return to, if there is to be a return. If I later become a University Lecturer, that will be another title with another burden, and it will again attach “in philosophy” to my name in the more public register. But for now, in this first term of 1939, the change is already complete: I have moved from being on probation to being, officially, one of the College’s responsible voices. And the next responsibility, though not chosen for its philosophical elegance, is to go and do my duty, leaving the Grove, the staircase, and the High Table to continue without me, as Oxford always continues, as if continuity were one more thing the College can elect by vote. April 10, 1930. Grice sat with the Oxford Gazette open in front of him, holding it as if it were a set text that might suddenly be examined. He read the notice once straight through, because that is what one does with lists in Oxford: one reads them through first to see whether one exists. “The following elections to Scholarships have been made: Herbert Paul Grice, Clifton College; George Vaughan Hart, Rossall School; John Montgomerie, Fettes College; Wilmot(t) Ayton Procter, St. George's School, Harpenden (Charles Oldham Scholarship); Frank Sainsbury, Clifton College; Arthur Wooler, Bradford Grammar School.” He read it again, slower, and, on the second pass, did the one calculation that a scholar does before any other. “Alphabetical,” he said. “So I am first.” Then, because Oxford trains you to treat order as implicature, he went back over the line and tested the order as if it were an argument. “Grice. Then Hart. Then Montgomerie. Then Procter. Then Sainsbury. Then Wooler.” He counted them. “Six,” he said. “Six scholarships. Not too few to be accidental, not too many to be generous.” He read his own entry again, because it was still slightly unreal to see “Herbert Paul Grice” in print without any immediate accompanying demand for an essay. “Clifton College,” he said, and allowed himself the tiniest internal nod, the sort that would have been punished at Clifton as conceit but was, in fact, merely relief. Then he read the next name with the dry curiosity of someone who hears a rival school’s name and tries not to turn it into a judgment. “George Vaughan Hart, Rossall School.” He paused. Rossall was not unknown to him; it had the sound of the north and the sea in it, a place that produced boys who could endure wind and Latin in equal measure. Still, it was not Clifton, and that mattered, because Clifton had taught him to believe that it was Clifton. “John Montgomerie, Fettes College.” That, too, carried a certain ring. Fettes meant Edinburgh, and Edinburgh meant a kind of Scottish seriousness that Oxford liked to praise while quietly distrusting it. Montgomerie, as a name, looked as if it belonged to a tartan history, and Grice, trained to hear names as if they were miniature biographies, wondered what sort of boy it marked: proud, perhaps, or simply well-drilled. “Wilmot(t) Ayton Procter, St. George’s School, Harpenden (Charles Oldham Scholarship).” He repeated it, because the parenthesis was the only part that broke the list’s rhythm. Most of the entries were plain: man and school. Here, however, Oxford had chosen to make the scholarship itself visible, naming it as if it were a minor benefactor in the room. “Charles Oldham Scholarship,” he said. “So Procter is named twice: once by birth, once by endowment.” He rolled “Ayton Procter” about in his head and decided it sounded like a double-barrelled name without the hyphen, a name that had learnt to behave in public. Then he returned to the next entry and felt a small, private glow. “Frank Sainsbury, Clifton College.” “Good,” he said, without any further explanation, because the explanation was not needed. Another Clifton man. Another boy who had survived the same chapel, the same housemasterly moralising, the same Latin that came at you not as a subject but as a corrective. It was not friendship, not necessarily; it was simply the comfort of shared formation. Clifton, in that moment, felt like a ship’s flag. You spotted it and you were glad of it. He remembered, briefly, the sort of Clifton moment that had made the whole business feel inevitable: the form-master dictating a bit of Cicero with the casual cruelty of someone who thinks boys exist to be corrected, and the boy beside him writing down something impossible, and the form-master, in full contempt, saying, “If you can’t hear Latin, you shan’t think in it.” Grice had heard it well enough to write it, and it had never stopped sounding like a threat. Now, oddly, it sounded like a credential. Finally he came to the last name. “Arthur Wooler, Bradford Grammar School.” Bradford Grammar sounded brisk and industrial, a school that made its boys by effort rather than by atmosphere. Wooler as a surname amused him slightly: it suggested cloth, trade, a Yorkshire practicality. It also suggested, to his Oxford-trained ear, that this list was not merely a parade of public schools. Clifton and Rossall and Fettes sounded like the old world. Bradford Grammar sounded like the newer England forcing its way in. He ran the list through a third time, because he wanted it fixed, not for sentiment, but for record. Herbert Paul Grice, Clifton College. George Vaughan Hart, Rossall School. John Montgomerie, Fettes College. Wilmot(t) Ayton Procter, St. George’s School, Harpenden (Charles Oldham Scholarship). Frank Sainsbury, Clifton College. Arthur Wooler, Bradford Grammar School. He looked at the schools as if they were also a second list: Clifton, Rossall, Fettes, St George’s Harpenden, Clifton again, Bradford Grammar. He noticed that Clifton appeared twice. “Two out of six,” he said. “Not bad.” Then, because the mind cannot help itself, he did one last piece of fastidiousness: he read the surnames again, not as facts, but as sounds. “Grice,” he said. “Hard consonants. A good scholar’s name. Hart,” he added, “also hard, but with a softer centre. Montgomerie: too many syllables, but aristocratic. Procter: practical, like a job. Sainsbury: a shop, which is odd for a scholar, but perhaps that is the joke. Wooler: cloth.” He folded the Gazette carefully, not because it needed care, but because he did. He would keep it, he knew. Not because it proved he was first, but because it proved he had been named, and in Oxford the act of being named in a list is the closest thing to a young man’s first public existence.

1913–1926

“the best years of your life” is a catchy phrase, and it is hard not to hear the title of that famous British film echoing behind it. for grice, the years from his birth in 1913 to his departure for clifton in 1926 really were the best years—though for reasons that, in his own telling, turn on what he later called his father’s dreadful gifts as a businessman.

herbert grice, born at edgbaston, ran a small manufacturing concern making metal parts. the business did well during the great war; the post-war years were another matter, and the collapse that followed would shape the household. yet grice’s earliest surroundings were those of success. he was born at “sandown,” the family’s detached victorian showpiece at the start of lordswood road—the road to live in, with all the old harborne resonance of “lords” and their proper places. the move from edgbaston to harborne marked, for the time being, a rise; and for the boy it meant something simpler: the heart of england as a daily, local fact.

when the business failed, mrs. herbert grice did not indulge in nostalgia. mabel mary felton—who outlived her husband by decades (herbert died in 1933; she in 1967)—turned necessity into strategy and the house into an institution. she made “sandown” into sandown in the public, advertised sense: by emptying unused rooms, thinning the furniture, and taking in private pupils, with the explicit aim of preparing them for examinations. clifton is mentioned; musical training seems central, encouraged by her husband’s talent and sustained, as the prospectus liked to say, by a “well trained” and numerous staff. grice later remarked that the first enrolled pupil was himself; the second, his younger brother, d. j. it is an arrangement that could have been grim; he presents it as unexpectedly delightful. sandown remained a home, but now with a daily society—friends, routines, an atmosphere of purposeful calm.

those years supplied grice with something he would later treat as formative: the sense that conversation is both discipline and refuge. he learned, in the presence of other pupils, to call his mother “ma’m,” while privately keeping the intimacy of “mother.” in the evenings the household could shift from talk to music: grice at the piano, his father on the violin, his brother on the cello, and—always in the background—an aunt whose catholic presence sharpened, by contrast, the family’s nonconformist temper. tea could become a small domestic seminar; walks along lordswood road punctuated the talk with the local rhythm of harborne itself. it is in this setting that grice later places the beginnings of what he called his “relentless irreverent conservative rationalism”: not a schoolroom doctrine, but a household habit of mind, learned at the table and tested in company.

in 1926 came the change that ended the idyll: clifton, properly so called, and boarding life. clifton had a junior school that took boys far younger, but grice escaped that early separation; his “home years” ran their full course. indeed he would later note, with some dry satisfaction, how long he managed to avoid living anywhere else: at clifton a boarder; at corpus in college rooms; at rossall among the masters; at merton in the senior scholar’s quarters; at st john’s in that cistercian splendour—until marriage in 1942 finally brought a rented flat on woodstock road. but the anchor, in his own retrospective map, is 1913–1926: sandown, lordswood road, a household reorganised by failure and made, by his mother’s decisiveness, into the scene of his happiest days.

ACTIONS AND EVENTS (1986). In Retrospective epilogue, a bit out of the blue Grice refers to ‘conversational remedial action’ – which he lists as a phenomnenon to consider. And indeed in ‘Actions and Events’ he makes the effort to LIST a number of ‘anaphotical’ misuses which are common in ordinary language but LOGICALLY inconsistent. (Grice’s obsession was this idea that the analytic-synthetic distinction will provide him with a tool to distinguish those cases). Each of the ‘anaphoric’ misfires he quotes allows for a conversational illustration in the light of what he refers to as ‘remedial action’.  Conversational illustration A: I hear you spent last summer in Persia.B: They are very dissatisfied with the present regime.A: Who? B: The Persians.Conversational Illustration II A: A car went whizzing by me and scraped my fender, but he didn’t stop. B: He who? A: The driver. Conversational Illustation III: A: Shropshire’s views on the immortality of the soul filled many pages in “Mind.”  B: I know – but it was eventually the Oxford Universtiy Prress that in the end published it. A: What do you mean, ‘it’? B: Strictly, Shrophsire’s presentation of his views. Conversational Illutration IV A: His leg was cancerous. B: They say he contracted it in Africa. A: What do you mean ‘it’? B: The disease cancer. What is ‘remedial action’. Conversationalist A makes a move M1 – or a couple of moves M1 and M2 within his turn. He has occasion to remedy it in the SAME turn – “It is raining, but I don’t believe it” – or let his co-conversationalist ask for remedial action – “Raining and you don’t believe it? I don’t get it” – or let his co-conversatioanlist provide the remedial action himself: “I won’t play your perverse Moorean games.” The unpublications always surpassed his publications, but they rest assured they have made the mark! Grice goes on to explore the reason behind this in more condescending notes. It was behind the idea a distinction: the way he formulates the distinction is complex. But in a way it unifies his vast output in the theory (or analysis) of signification along with his corresponding vast output in the theory of conversation. The idea rests on distinguishing between a human agent A and his expression – call it E --. The distinction Grice is making is one ‘all too often neglecgted by Austin’ (never mind it being ‘seemingly ignored’ by Witters. It is a distinction also between two sides of the conversational coin. His way of describing these two sides underwent some modification, but the kernel of it is that there is one side which refers to the DICTIVENESS, or the explicit conveyance. At this point, he is allowing that this may apply to either the human agent A or his expression E. More importantly, his focus is here on the OTHER side: the IMPLICITNESS. Provided we are considering that the Expression E is meaningful – or significant – that entails that E is being the VEHICLE by which the human agent A SIGNIFIES – let us say, that p. This other side then adds a q – his model is inferential. Q is a consequence of P. And the distinction amounts then to this idea that a human agent A may, by uttering E qua move of a conversational game, be signifying TWO THINGS: explicitly, that p; implicitly, that q.  AUSTIN and GRICE would hardly involve themselves in substantive questions in the philosophy of language at Oxford. There were various reasons for this. Grice’s ‘Meaning’ had circulated since 1948 and eventually saw the print in 1957, yet another reason why Austin would discourage discussion! So let us imagine the conversation that may have occurred should Grice presented Austin with this dichotomy he holds Grice is ‘all too often ignoring’: GRICE. What I mean. AUSTIN. What do you mean? GRICE. I mean, that’s not what my EXPRESSION mean. My ‘if’ is still ‘Philonian.’ AUSTIN. I don’t get your point. GRICE. It is one thing to specify what I mean or signify or imply by making the conversational move that I make, and quite another to go on and apply these verbal locutions to the expression itself. I would even argue that an ‘expression’ does not ‘signify’ or ‘imply’ per se – it is primarily persons, like you and me, that do! AUSTIN. I see your point. A little further excursus about the passage where Grice expresses that difference of opinion with Austin is relevant. It is part of a large draft written by Grice, which he authored as “H. P. Grice” and entitled, “Prejudices and predilections; which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice.” It comes from a time when Grice is reminiscing on his days with Austin. By ‘days with Austin’ Grice was clear what it was all about. Austin is indeed credited with being the founder of so-called (as Grice self-pompously put it) the Founder of the Oxford School of Ordinary-Language Philosophy. The claim has been challenged, and Grice s willing to accept the challenge. In Post-War Oxford, there were at least TWO other movements led by figures who had the same right to count as founders. The first one Grice mentions is RYLE, who had appointed himself, only post-War (pre-war Ryle is a different animal) as leader in the field – and his group consisted of what Grice called the over-age: Mabbott, Kneale, and a few juniors like Owen, and O. P. Wood (with whom Grice interacted with higher frequency). And then there’s ‘Vitters’ himself. Not so much for himself, who was gone, but by the fact that his literary executor had submitted his Philosophiscche Untersuchungen to be published bilingually by Blackwell.  More importantly, Grice, who knew Berlin well – they both shared the alma mater of Corpus Christi, and naturally, the tutelage of Hardie – (Berling being two years Grice’s senior) and was aware of this rather abrupt claim by Berlin that ordinary-language philosophy had originated PRE-War. The sad thing, as Grice notes, is for the very fact that he (Grice, not Berlin) had been born on the wrong side of the tracks, entailed that he never socialized with Austin pre-war, by which Berlin is referring specifically to the Tuesday evening meetings of what Hamphsire calls the ‘old play group.’  In retrospect, as Grice also mentions in the same ‘Prejudices and predilections,’ Grice knew that he had done his best to keep the ‘new’ play group thriving. When Austin yielded to cancer in his fifties, Searle informs us that Grice was desolate and grieved the man for a year or two. But soon enough he was, indeed the next Saturday, Grice was appointing himself as the new leader of the new-new play group. They would meet mainly at Corpus – but the point was more vague. The new play group campaign by Austin was motivated by the fact that he wanted to provide an insitituional setting and milieu to this generation of philosophers who would be willing to follow him – ‘If they don’t follow me, WHO would they follow?’. In retrospect, Grice confessed that the meetings were social than anything else. Even Warnock commented that, for all Austin’s praise for linguistic botanising and the dictionary, he seldom carried one. The anecdotes Grice retells of the minutes of the new play group are conversational and anecdotal in kind, with Nowell-Smith usually playing the straight man to Austin who is then in a position to supply a master class in ordinary language performance.  By the time Grice found himself the leader of the new new play group, the philosopohers had aged, and had already some bit of publication track behind him, and they had less of the time to engage in this type of ‘para-philosophy.’ One requirement for Austin’s new play group is that every member – ‘whose class has no other class,’ as Grice joked – would be a whole-time (as Warnock’s old fashioned prose has it) tutorial fellows – in philosophy, need I say? By the time Grice inherited the post, some of the members have evolved into professorships, and so on. But the methodological aspect of the conversation between Austin and Grice on what a conversationalist means by making the conversational move that he is making, and ANYTHING ELSE remains significant, and what Grice saw as HIS OWN contribution to the longitudinal unity of Oxford philosophy, as the twentieth-century experienced it. THE CONVERSATIONAL GAME.  Conversation as a game.  Not just a metaphor.  The phrases ‘conversational move,’ ‘conversational game,’ ‘the rules of the conversational game,’ and so on – appear late in Grice’s career, usually in precis of his theory. It is never addressed as a methodological or substantive point as such in the philosophy of language. It is always SOMETHING OTHER than conversation (never mind as a game) that Grice has in mind. This is important, because he would not be bothered with providing a substantive theory of conversation along those lines – it was not his motivation. His motivation was the approach to traditional philosophical problems – notably, as he notes, first in the philosophy of perception. If the solution to those problems INVOLVED indirectly an indication as to how conversation proceeds, then he may feel the need to expand on this in paragraph or two. So what we are doing is isolating those side remarks by Grice, always aimed at A PROBLEM OTHER than conversation. And why would we care?  The justification of our move concerns not just the LONGITUDINAL UNITY of philosophy – how Grice saw himself vis-à-vis not just Austin, but Kantotle – but its LATITUDINAL UNITY of philosophy. It was clear to Grice that the same parameters that guided him in discussions as arid as metaphysical eschatology or axiology would have a parallel in what he called ‘psychologia rationalis’ a branch of which is the theory of communication – an offshoot of his theory of expression – how pirots express. A point should be made about a distinction Grice makes that is usually underestimated. Grice relies on intuitions, his own, and the best way those intuitions get out there for critical examination is the provision of an ANALYSIS, not a theory.  When J. M. Rowntree challenged Grice with reductionism, that was precisely Grice’s point in his reply. He is not into THEORY construction when it comes to his intuitions about ‘signification’ and communication. Rather, he is giving shape to his own intuitions. And the result is an analysis, which, yes, may be deemed ‘reductive’ if not ‘reductionist.’ So those who embrace the phrase ‘theory of communication’ or ‘theory of conversation’ should take that caveat into account. It is a theory, but a folksy, informal, caeteris paribus one. And it is meant as a TOOL to DIRECT to the ‘traditional’ philosophical problems – with the solution o dissolution of which he would be professionally involved as a tutorial fellow at St. John’s and university lecturer for Oxford at large. Professionally involved does not necessarily refer to those students under his supervision, but those under his examination. As a member of the board of examiners, Grice was in close contact with the rest of the faculty: they were looking for a unified field where the same problems would be posed, and while divergent solutions would be accepted, it was up to the examinee to be able to REASON his choice of a solution out.  It may seem, and must have seemed on occasion ridiculous to Grice to be lecturing on the etiquette of conversation to grown-up philosophers. An Oxonian tutor considers his tutee a grown-up philosopher.  His brain is formed.  Grice’s examples involving children are another piece of cake. I leave the china my daughter broke. Can she catch the implicature? Grice doubts it.  In the occasions where he lectured on conversation at Oxford in seminar format, he knew he was dealing more or less with grown-ups (Boris Johnson was never his tutee). AND THERE IS A REASON for this.  His theory is commonsense. This has a double side to Grice. His earliest publications involve indeed a defence of common sense over the challenge of scepticism. (His joint seminar with A. D. Woozley, who, as it happened, had socialized with Austin in the old play group that met Tuesday evenings at All Souls). But a most important link is provided by philsophers like J. F. Bennett, who have defended the correctness of Grice’s sophisticated views on m-intentions and defeasibility aspects of generalized implicature as mere offshoots of what is ALWAYS a common-sense theory, or theory based on common-sense. We may lay the blame for this on Oxford’s revolt against Bradley and his inaccuracies when it came to providing an exegesis of Hegel: nothing far from common sense than that. In contract, the philosophers of Grice’s generation – from Austin up to Grice – Hamsphire is another beast – were ‘realists’ of the Cook-Wilson school, and common sense was the weapon they shielded. Unlike Austin, who has to rely on Scots law and the idea of an operational procedure, which is performatory in nature, with the phatic before the rheme, there is none of such nonsense in Grice. All he says about conversation makes sense because his intended audience can very well recongnise that it is a common-sense idea that springs from ordinary-language and how ordinary-language deals with conversation.  This is not Wizeman on ELIZA, or Minsky and his frames, and goals, that captivated Thomason and other New-World pragmaticisits.  This is good old Old World in the dreaming spires. It is the type of thing that conversation was meant to be at Rome, as they copied the Athenian dialectic that seduced the circle of the Scipioni, and the type of dialectica that thirved at Europe’s first university.  The interesting thing is that good philosophers have ALWAYS recognized that. Grice’s theory is based on commonplaces that belong to common sense. Not just about conversation, but about meaning as a class of intending. What can be less intuitive than that? J. F. Bennett, who as a New-Zealander never got to converse in Maori, knew this well enough. As acolonial, like Armstrong, who was another Australasian to come within Grice’s circle, he knew that there was this ‘colonial’ uptake projected on them. Armstrong makes it al the more vivid. He recalls one of those pre-patterned conversations between Grice and Strawon in their weekly speaker-rotated seminars on ‘meanning, logical form, and categories. As it happened another Australasian was part of the game. What is going on? No idea, Armstrong said. Having just witenessing the retreat by O. P. Wood who had challenged Grice at one of the rare points where Grice even allowed such a challenge, Armstrong oracled: “I don’t know what game they are playing but whatever the game is, it seems that Strawson and Grice are winning.”  Against Quine, no doubt. A few weeks later, Amonstrong was able to interact conversationally prma facie viva voce with Grice and Austin who were examining him with a view of allowing him to go back down under. Armonstrong did his best to explain Smart’s very smart physicalist identity theory. Austin just nodded with approval, and gave him a pass. Grice confuted, and not only found Armtrong’s thesis unacceptable, but he had witnessed that if Armstorng was at point P2 of the conversation, making the conversational M2, this was totally inconsisting with Armstrong having made move M1 prior, at point P1. ‘In other words, you are self-contracting – yourself, that is.’ A recess took place, and under the threat that failing Armstrong would mean that he would have to see him on campus, he allowed him to pass, and move directly to the London pier, where he could catch a boat to Down Under! At one point, Grice ceased to be the methodologist he wanted to be – to criticize other philosopher’s talk, and decides to provide a substantial theory of conversation.  All he has to say is common-sense which is a compliment for him. It derives from his intention-based theory of meaning, which is also common-sense, but without the intricacies. Therefore, it is understanding that it received much less attention than those intricacies that philosophers worship and to which they impose Grice’s ‘Meaning’ – a thesis, in the words of B. J. Harrison, to come only second as one which had received the largest number of counterexamples to rule-utilitarianism. By contrast, his theory of conversation is a piece of cake, and the presuppositions it rests on Grice can comfortably ignore, since he knows he is not lecturing anyone on ethical communication or norms of etiquette.  The piece of cake starts by some vocabulary. We will have the two conversationalists, which are really PLAYERS of the conversational game.  This sounds easy, but an animal cannot play. Homo ludens. So the first presupposition is important. Grice is already presupposing the most serious presuppositions in philosophy. The players make moves, and take turns – conversational moves, and conversational turns. Grice knew that, as a philosopher, the only thing he could well ignore, is how conversations play at Oxford. When Harvey Sacks read the lectures he was surprised that Grice never had observed a conversation other than his own. So turn-taking is a bit of a joke. Grice is concerned with the ‘that’-clause, as Austin calls it. The cat is on the mat. He conveys explicitly that the cat is on the mat. This requires a formal supplementation in terms of predicate calculus.  Grice designed one, which has been named by one of his colleagues System G, or system G-hp, a hopefully plausible, highly powerful version of System G.  The easiest way to put this in practice is via Toulmin. In presenting his picture theory of meaning he draws a cat that sat on the mat. ‘Th cat is on the mat’ or ‘The cat sat on the mat’ became Grice’s dyad as in: A: Where did the cat sit?  B: On the mat.  The Griceian touch to it is the addition of the concept of ‘signification’ or meaning – each conversationalist, when making his conversational move, is MEANING something. This is common sense, and common sense is the idea that such a meaning is a form of an intention. (Indeed, in Italian, and for most of the period of scholastic philosophy in Latin, ‘intendere’ and ‘significare’ are SYNONYMS).  This piece of common sense is best expressed by Grice by saying that it is a corollary of a psycho-logical (philosophical psycho-logical) caeteris paribus – best expressed by Hazzlitt in his English proverbs: “I know your meaning from your moaning”! (Similarly, when reducitng VOL to JUD and before proceeding to generalise either as ADC (from Latin adceptum, English ‘accept’) Grice appeals to another folksy law of psycho-logy (philosophical psychology): ‘we soon believe what we desire’ or as Hazzlitt again has it, Will is the Father of the Thought.  If Collingwood was saying in this “Idea of Language” – a sequel to his better known “The idea of history” that conversation resolves in conversando – a point also approached at Oxford by Gardiner, Entwistle, and Sayce – Grice knew what he was talking about. He happens to feel the need to specify his position the year before he died. When discussing ‘utterer’s meaning’ in the “Retrospective epilogue” Grice does consider an objection to the effect that a true behaviourist should rather focus on the INTERPRETANT. But by making the DYAD the unit of analysis: A: Where did the cat sit? B: On the mat Grice had a an easy way out. His analysis of ONE single conversational move – consider B’s response here, “The cat sat on the mat” already INCORPORATES the ‘interpretant,’interpreted as the interpretation that the conversationalist is aiming it will be the one his co-conversatioanlist will come along. In symbols VOLBJUDAJUDB(the cat sat on the mat) The utterer has, we assume, perceived that the cat sat on the mat, and he has consequently conceived that the cat sat on the mat – Grice’s potching and cotching in the pirotese that is the framework for his philosophical psychology.This means, in terms of the transcendental philosophical psychology that Peacocke will popularise as Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy, that inter-subjectivity is a possibility. The utterer is INTENDING his addressee to, if not perceive, trust the utterer’s perceptions, but at least CONCEIVE that the cat is on the mat.Grice jocularly refers to Austin’s uptake – which is the closest Austin, a behaviourist at heart – witness the silly title for his Harvard lectures: how to do things with words – would go to define Locke’s understanding (Grice in contrast, refers ‘understands’ as one of the primary consequences for a subject of analysis once his intention-based account of communication is accepted). Grice’s answer is that some form of ‘uptake’ is already then present in EVERY conversational move worth the making.  Grice’s CONVERSATIONAL dyad, or better, his choice of the CONVERSATIONAL DYAD as the unit of analysis – and not JUST the conversational move – secures this uptake. For Austin, securing of uptake was only necessary in betting. AUSTIN. I bet he won’t come. GRICE. Who? AUSTIN. Hampshire, who else? Austin wants to say that Austin cannot be judged as having ‘bet’ anything – unless Grice takes up his bet – it is the ONLY conversational scenario that Austin allows as REQUIRING some form of securing of upake for even DEEMING the conversationalist to have made the conversational move he has alleged to have made.  The sequence in the dyad then marks the passage from INTENDED uptake to ACTUAL uptake. We are still talking philosophese so do not expect any interest in these philosophers, aptly, as to what actually goes on or will go on! GRICE offers a nice metaphor here when referring not to the CONVERSATIONAL TAILORING principle but the expectation of CONVERSATIONAL DOVETAILING. In the dyad,  A: M1 B: M2 “M1” and “M2” dovetail. Grice discusses this at length. And, as is his penchant, in terms not only of verbal (‘linguistic’) TALK echanges but ‘conversations’ of the Biblical type, involving just gestures. He provides FOUR SCENARIOS for each of the conversational categories – thereby proving that ‘four’ seems like a good number – in none of this discussion he cares to disseminate each of the FOUR and four only conversational categories – into the gamut of more specific behavioural guidelines within the scope of each conversationalist’s expectations regarding the helpfulness of his co-conversatioanlist. FIRST SCENARIO. The DOVETAILING of QUANTITAS A: Pass me two screws B passes two screws – not one, not three SECOND SCENARIO: The DOVETAILING of Qualitas A: Pass me a spoon B passes a real spoon, not a trick one made of rubber. THIRD SCENARIO: the DOVETAILING of Relatio A: I’ll plant the seeds B: And I’ll water them FOURTH SCENARIO: the dovetailing of Modus A: He went to bed  B: And took off his trousers Grice must accept that the narration of events is still true if ‘he’ actually took off his trousers BEFORE going to bed (He is borrowing the example from Urmson’s discussion of Wittgenstein’s truth-functionality of ‘and’ in ‘Philosophical analysis: its development between the two wars).  Grice’s considerations on embedded uptake already in the conversationalist’s initial move (“Where did the cat sit?”) even before it gets realised or actualised by his co-conversationalist confirmation in the second move in the dyad is also reflected in an important taxonomy he presents for the anatomy of a single conversational move. A conversational move need only be ‘exhibitive,’ not protreptic. These are the technical tags he uses in ‘Utterer’s meaning and intentions.’ While the joint insitutiton of a joint decision, which results in a joint action by conversatioanlists – other than the one they ARE undertaking by their very engaging in conversation – is a plus, but not the specific goal of each specific move. In “Utterer’s meaning and intentions” – willing to appease the formalists in his audience – and annoying some formalists that have capriciously turned informalists – such as Putnam, rerpoted by Grice:  PUTNAM: You know, Grice, I like you, and what you do: but you are, if you ask me, WAY TOO FORMAL.  GRICE. We don’t say WAY TO at Oxford! +> We should have lunch together sometime. So Grice allows for a formal variance in the fulfilment of the prongs indicating the necessary and sufficient conditions for ‘Conversationalist A has CONVEYED to conversationalist B that p’ – exhibtive in all cases: VOLAJUDBACCA(*(Ex)FxGx Protreptic in only some cases: VOLAJUDBACCB(*(Ex)FxGx He realises that this causal refinement proves CRUCIAL when dealing with modes.  A: Where did the cat sit? B: On the mat. A’s first move is in the INTERROGATIVE MODE – MODVS INTERROGATIVS of the modistae. B’s answer is the modistae MODVS INDICATIVVS.One should not be surprised when in the middle of a re-write of his earlier ‘Desirability, Credibility, and Mode Operators” in the Reason lectures at Oxford, Grice expands specifically on MODVS INTERROGATIVVS. He noted the philosophers of language – if not philosophers simpliciter: witness Heidegger – have underestimated the communicative complexity of questions. He goes on to propose the logical form of a question in terms of new operators that are not standard in predicate calculus first order – such as lambda and others. They are difficult to get the philosopher acquainted with them since they have been displayed rarely. Grice is concerned with the radix, √the cat is on the mat.  In an interrogative, the variables may occupy different places: the proposition as a whole or parts thereof. But surely the interrogator is not supplied with the ITEM that will fill the CATEGORY SLOT – just the CATEGORY SLOT. In the diagramme he drew on the Oxford blackboard when delivering the Locke lectures at the Sheldonian he made two attending notes:  The first note applies to legitimate substituends: Interrogatives: Legitimate substituends for “∝ ” are 'positively" and 'negatively': positively judging that p and negatively judging that pis judging that not-p. The second note attends (Ex): The 'uniquely existential' quantifier “E1∝” is to he given a 'substitutional' interpretation.  A third note concerns the differential. Surely a question is PROTREPTIC. Unless in the case: A: Where the hell have I placed my keys? A’S WIFE. Have you checked the kitchen counter? A: I wasn’t talking to you! The third note then applies to the differential: If the differential is supplemented (as in a B case), the quantifier is dragged back', so as to appear immediately before 'H' in the supplement. The three notes to the graphic diagramme are interesting on two respects.  One s not supposed to use a blackboard at the Sheldonian. Grice did. Second: one is supposed to READ the diagramme. Nobody did.  It is later in the course of the lecture that Grice’s prose becomes more accessible as he tries to explain and expand on the special symbolism – the sub-atomic particles of logic as Hare would have it – regarding a propositional complex involved in  √the cat is on the mat Specifically ?√The cat is on the mat. At one point Grice played with the idea of introducing the reverse interrogation mark to signify: ‘answer’: ¿√the cat is on the mat But he was more concerned at this point with the inner particles involved in the propositional complex itself – the cat is on the mat – (Grice’s obsession with the propositional complex, rather than the propositio of Boethius simpliciter is due to the New-World obsession with avoiding a commitment to them, and Grice was often challenged on this by non-Oxonian non-English philosophers, which he regretted. – “Nobody at Oxford, a true Englishman, would make a point about that at Oxford!”. There are two varieties of interrogatives, 'Yes/No' interrogatives ("Is the cat on the mat?") and "x" interrogatives ("Where did the cat sit?", "What sit on the mat?", "How did the cat find the mat?" – in Actions and Events he lists the *seventeen* POSSIBLE logical forms – with ‘The cat sat on the mat’ as the default – an ‘event’ and an ‘action’ – ‘The cat sat on the mat and then run the door when the dean arrived” involves a SUCCESSION – and so on. Here are the fourteen possible conversational moves – and yet his view is that conversation is NOT mechanically substitutable. What we are focusing on is the subtlety of Grice’s approach to deal with a simple radix as ‘the cat is on the mat’ an its variatons. FAMILY OR PHYLUM A. CASE (1) àt tPhi …. rae-presents ‘φ up to t.’ CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION: A: Did the cat sit on the mat. B: Yes, Up to late afternoon. CASE (2)  àt t Phi phi re-praesents ‘φ into t.” CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: Yes, well into late afternoon. CASE (3) àt t Phi phi Re-praesents “phi out of t” [from t onwards]. CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION A: Did the cat sit on the mat.B: Yes, the morning only. CASE (4) t tà … phi re-praesents “phi from t” [phi after t]. CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION: A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: Yes, after he was properly fed. CASE (5) àt t tà Phi phi phi re-praesents “phi through t”. CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION: A: Dd the cat sit on the mat? B: Yes, well though the afternoon. PHYLUM B: category of QUALITAS – for QUALITY phi, below, within and above the limits of a given quality or property. CASE (6)  <phi re-praesents ‘below the limits of’  CONVERSATOINAL ILLUSTRATION: A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: For a shorter period that I was expecting. CASE (7)  =phi --withn the limits of “ CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION: A: Did the cat sit on themat? B: Within the expected limits, I’m happy to confirm. CASE (8)  >phi —above the limits of” CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION A: Did the cat sit on the mat B: Above the normal limits – but I was not surprised (Or: But it surprised me not one bit). PHYLUM C. Conversational moves inquiring and getting an answer on determinables.  Case (9) àt t tà <phi phi >phi represents “rising through d at t.” Conversational illustration: A: Did the cat sit on the mat. B: He raised at noon. CASE (10) àt t tà >phi phi <phi represents "falling through at t Conversational illustration: A: Did the cat sit on the mat B: He left for a while to urinate. CASE (11) àt t tà <phi phi <phi represents "peaking through d at t Conversational illustration A: Did the cat sit on the mat B: Most of the time, but mostly after fed for a second time. CASE (12) àt1 t tà >ph phi >ph represents "bottoming with at t'. Conversationa illustration A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: Yes, well into midnight. →4 PHYLUM D. Conversational moves involving determinables.  CASE (13) t1 à t2 phi1 =>Δ ph2 re-praesents ‘rising from phi1 to phi2 within determinable D from t1 to t2. Conversational illustration: A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: He did; and then he ran after a mouse but was soon back. CASE (14) t1 à t2 ph1 <=Δ ph2 re-praesents ‘falling from phi1 to phi2 within determinable D, from t1 to t2.” Conversational illustration. A: Did the cat sit on the mat B: He was not on the mat for a full hour and I started to worry. PHYLUM E.  Case (15)  Δ represents a determinable – e. g. the velocity that the Dean’s cat can achieve while running from the mat to the garden and back. Conversational illustration: A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: Inertly so. Case (16)  Three sub-cases the first: Δ_n-m;  the second: Δ_<n;  the third: Δ_>n,  re-praesent a sub-determinable of Δ  -- e.g., for the first: a speed of from 40 to 50 mph,  for the second: a speed of less than 50 mph',  for the third: a speed of more than 50 mph- Conversational illustration: A: Did the cat sit on the mat B: And he snored, too – each snore at the speed of five minutes. A: Well, I’m glad he didn’t run! Commenting on The Dean’s cat, Grice commented that a grey-hound is the fastest ‘cat’ breed in the world, capable of reaching top speeds of 45 miles per hour.  While many sources cite 45 mph as the standard peak, the Guinness Book of World Records officially recognizes a top speed of 41.83 mph, set by a ‘cat’ named Star Title. Some key Speed Facts include: Rapid Acceleration: A Greyhound can reach its top speed of 45 mph in just six strides from a standing start. Distance Capabilities: While they are elite sprinters, they can maintain a steady speed of 35 mph for distances as long as seven miles. Gender Differences: On average, male Greyhounds reach higher peak speeds (up to 45 mph) than females, who typically top out around 41 mph. Comparison to Humans: In a 100-meter dash, a Greyhound (like Brett Lee in 2001) can finish in approximately 5.33 seconds, compared to Usain Bolt's human world record of 9.58 seconds.  Biological Advantages: The Greyhound's speed is a result of specialized anatomy designed for the double suspension gallop:  Flexible Spine: Their "S-shaped" outline and flexible spine act like a spring, extending their stride length. Massive Heart: During a race, a Greyhound's heart can beat 300–360 times per minute, circulating its entire blood volume up to five times in just 30 seconds. Double Suspension: When running at full tilt, there are two distinct moments in each stride where all four feet are completely off the ground. Case (17) Δ_n re-praesents a precise determinate of Δ. Conversational Illustration: A: Did the cat sit on the mat? B: And so fast Shroedinger missed it. The specifiers derivable from the schema Grice drew on the blackboard at the Sheldownian provide only for "Yes/No' interrogatives, though the diagramme of course  can and should be quite easily amended so as to yield a restricted but very large class of "x" interrogatives. The distinction between a Judicative and a Volitive Interrogative co-relates to the difference between cases in which a questioner is indicated as being concerned to obtain information ("Is the cat on the mat?"), and cases in which the questioner is indicated rather as being concerned to settle a problem about what he is to do – as the dean of Hartford wondering: "Am I supposed to ALLOW the cat to sit on the mat?", "Is the cat to be sit on the mat, after all?" "Shall I go on allowing such behvioiur from the cat?").  This difference is fairly well represented, Grice thought, in English grammar of the type that is often flouted at Oxford, and much better represented in the grammars of some other languages, as any old Cliftonian or former classics master at Rossall (he was both) can easily testify. It’s the Grief and the Laughter of Lewis Carroll. The A/B differences are (Grice thinkks) not marked at all in English grammar. They are, however, often quite casily detectable from what Grice calls The Conversational Context – where the TEXT is the content of the conversational moves themselves). There is usually a recognizable difference between a case in which someone says, musingly or reflectively, "Is that cat to be trusted about leaving the goldfish alone" (a case in which the dean might say that he was just wondering), and a case in which he makes the same conversational move – or the same TYPE of conversational move – capital “M” for type, of’Move’ – lower-case “m” for TOKEN of a conversational move --  as an enquiry.  Similarly, we can usually tell whether the dean who says "Shall I feed the cat? I know the servant will do otherwise" is just trying to make up his mind, or is trying to get advice or instruction from his co-conversationalist. Grice then turns to the  hot stuff: the employment of the variable ‘o' needs to be explained. Grice indeed confesses he indeed borrowed (but never returned) a little from an obscure branch of continental philosophy – of the type that only the very obtuse would draw on at Oxford --, once (but maybe no longer) practised, called (Grice thinks) "proto-thetic" (why? Because the ‘proto’ is Greek for ‘axioma’), the main rite in which is for these continental philosophers to quantify over (or through) this or that connective, “∝”,  is to have as its two substituents "positively" (or better, to echo Bothius, ‘affimatively’) and "negatively", which may modify the verbs "JUD' and ‘VOL'; negatively jud or negatively vol that p is jud or wol that “~ p.” √~the cat is on the mat. The quantifier (E1∝)..., on the other hand, has to be treated substitutionally – god forbid to look for an object here! Surely the cat is a thing, not an object; as specified in the second note to the graphic scheme that Grice drew on the blackboard.  If, for example, the dean of Hertford asks someone whether the servant fed the cat (B case), surely the dean is unlikely to be wishing to inform his addressee merely to will that the dean has a particular "Logical Quality" in mind which the dean believes to apply. The dean, rather, wants his co-conversationalist to have one of the "Qualities" in mind which the co-conversationalist wants thde dean to believe to apply.  To meet this demand, supplementation must 'drag back' the quantifier applying to the ‘sevant.’ To extend the schema so as to provide specifiers for a 'single' x-interrogative (that is, a question like "Where did the cat sit?" rather than a question like "What sat where?!"), we need just a little extra apparatus.  We need to be able to SUPERSCRIBE – recall Grice is into the Chomsky rae-presentations which Chomsky thought would generativly and semantically provide the deep structures a philosopher should be interested in -- an "x" in EACH interrogative operator (for example, ?W/over A turnstile; ? x over B!” – “what sit where?”), together with the proviso that the radix “√” which follows a SUPER-scribed operator must be only an 'open' radical, which contains one or more occurrences of just ONE free variable. And we need what Grice calls a 'chameleon' variable λ, to occur only in a quantifier – the three last formal devices of his list: (x) for ‘all’; (Ex) for ‘some (at least one) and (ix) for ‘the’ --, so that (Eλ)Fy is to be regarded as a way of rae-presenting (Ex)Fx, while (Eλ)Fy is a way of re-praesenting (Ey) Fy.  To provide a specifier for an x-SUPER-scribed operator, we simply, as philosophers, *delete* the appearances of “∝” in the specifier for the corresponding un-superscribed operator – ‘what the eye no longer sees the heart no longer grieves for” – and, if you are pedant enough, insert instead the quantifier (E1λ)(…) at the position previously occupied by (E1∝) (...). For example: the specifiers for "Who fed the cat?" (used as an enquiry) would be: “My co-conversationalist  to make the conversational move ‘?x over B turnstile:: x fed the cat’ if my co-conversatioanlist wills his co-conversatioanlist (myself) to judge that the co-conversationalist is to will that (E1λ) (the co-conversatioanlist should will that the conversationalist JUDGES  (x fed the cat)"; in which ‘(Eλ)’ will ‘take on’ the shape "(E1x),” since '' is the free variable within its scope. (Grice is playing with his recollections of his favourite London philosopher C. K. Ogden – author of the volume Grice revered, “MM,” which Grice used to abbreviate “The meaning of meaning: a study in the science of symbolism” for indeed I. A. Richards had managed at one point to deliver a lecture at Oxford composed ONLY of interrogatives – and this was before Heidegger had turned the Frage into a keyword in continental philosophy! Note two the complications brought by “~”. This was indeed Grice’s initial concern in his philosophical career, when out of the blue, he thought of impressing his superiors at Merton – he was just a scholar, however senior – with some typewritten (he didn’t type) notes on ‘Negation and privation.’ While the difference is a matter of either Grief (apophasis/skeresis) or Laughing (negatio/privatio), Grice takes it to earnestness. In MODVS INTERROGATIVS involving yes/no question,  √the cat is on the mat We need to allow for the possibility that ‘Is the cat on the mat?’ receives a negative answer: √~(the cat is on the mat). It will only be at a later stage, that motivated by his tutee’s revolution against the modernists and bringing Aristotle back, Grice will deal with ‘vacuous’ bits of a propositional complex. In a scenario where such cat – thing Schroedinger – does not exist, the ‘common ground’ between conversationalists differ. In A’s question, “Is the cat on the mat?” the variable, although applying to the whole propositional complex – which makes of this a yes/no question – need not have a counterpart in B’s frame of mind – given that B thinks such a cat does not exist. There is no way that he has PERCEIVED (potched) and CONCEIVED (cotched) such a cat. The ~ then is just ornamental. (Grice would oftentimes use the derivative scenario of K B – for King Bald and play with √~KxBx – and variants thereof. These could take two formulations: numerical, as in √~1KxB2x Or √~2KxB1x In the second reading, the predicate has scope over ~, which explains the implicature that the conversationalist makes his move as if he is believing that such a cat (or such a king) might be on the mat (or bald). In the first reading, which is the default one, it’s negation which has maximal scope. The cat being on the mat (or the king being bald) is ENTAILED by a conversational move such as ‘The cat is on the mat’ or ‘The present king of France is bald.’ The cat is on the mat (or the king being bald) is ONLY CANCELLABLY CONVERSATIONALLY IMPLICATED – not entailed – by a conversational move of a different form, with the operator ~ attached to it: “The cat is not on the mat”  (or “The present king of France is not bald” ), or “it is not the case that the cat is on the mat” (or “it is not the case that the present king of France is bald”) or even, Grice suggests, ‘It is false that the cat is on the mat” (or “it is false that the king of France is bald”).  So a conversationalist has be careful – it’s sometimes just a matter of intonation, or frown – at Oxford, both gown or town.  A: Where did the cat sit? B: On the mat. A: Well, politely disallow her! It is after all, an extremely refined map and that shaggy cat should not be shedding her long hairs on it – as I’m sure the dean should agree. A’s second move is in the MODVS IMPERATIVS. Grice at one point played with MODVS OPTATIVS A: Ah! B: Ah what? A: Ah, for that Smith be happy! In “Utterers’s meaning, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning” he is allowing that his dummy for ‘mood’ (*psi – read asterisk sub psi) should stand for ‘indicative,’ ‘imperative’ ‘optative’ what have you. In Intention and Uncertainty he played with  A: Let there be light? B: Latin, please A: Fiat lux. He is considering the future, as per future intentional (“I shall, you will”) and the future factual (“I will, you shall”). He allows that not even the most ordinary-language speakers at Oxford – those like him with a double first in the greats and Austin – are sure how to use them. Careful English speakers, as he puts it – “as most of us are NOT” – will hardly make the mistake of taking one sub-mode by another. Because this is what Grice is after. The idea of a conversational move is easy enough to digest. But the game of conversation is such that MOVES can be made IN A VARIETY OF MODES – MODUS is after all the fourth conversational category – and what is worse, there are MIXED-MODE conversational moves, too, such as: A: Touch the beast and it will bite you B: Do serpents bite? B’s point is that Cicero uses ‘mordere’ NOT for ‘serpent.’ But A’s original conversational move seems mixed-mode in that the first conjunctum seems imperative ‘Touch the beast!’ while the second is future factual (“The beast will bite you”).  Grice is concerned at this point – in “Aspects of reason” with developing two points previous in his career. In “Logic and conversation” he had resumed his earlier “Negation and privation” and “Negative propositions,” especifcally on “~” – and inspired by the inadqacies by Strawon on ‘>’ – that Grice presented in Prolegomena’ Grice provides the list: one unitary operator, “not” – two dyadic paratactical ones: “and” and “or” – one dyadic hypotactical: “if.” It is to the dyadic hypotatictcal that he’ll dedicate most of his attention on now on. He has, after all, formulated his principle of conversational benevolence (a. k. a. the principle of conversational helpfulness) as a ‘Conversational Imperative’ – following  not only Kantotle, but Hare, who couldn’t think in NON-imperative terms – and now in the second Paul Carus lecture he feels like torturing his audience with ways in which the phrastic mode operator applies either to the protasis or he apodosis. A: Do it! B: What if not? A categorical imperative is self-justified in context, but need not be. The modes and submodes play thus a key role in conversation. The Conversational Move is allowed to display a mode, and it may be up to the co-conversationalist to get clarification as to what sub-mode that is. Grice is not so much concerned –as others have – studying how uptake gets realised in elaborate conversational sequences – but his taxonomy he thought was a good proof that he was working along the right lines in philosophical psychology. Each mode and its submodes is aptly analysed with the aid of the VOL and JUD operator, where sometimes a reference has to be made to a neutral psychological attitude of ACC to cover EITHER VOL or JUD.  There is such a thing as a MODUS INDICATIVUS that a move may display so the modistae were not necessarily wrong. But surely if we take the exhibition/protrepsis divide seriously, some moves are just displays of one’s BELIEFS – a display of a desire is the rudiment of an ORDER, rather -, whereas other moves carry an implicated ‘For your information’ – or the occasional vocative. To use Austin’s example A: A goldfinch! B: I see. Great! Versus A: A goldfinch, Grice! B: I see, thanks! By using the vocative, Austin’s conversational move carries the implicature of the SUB-MODE: not MODVS INDICATIVVS but SVB-MODVS INFORMATIVS. A parallel springs in the imperative realm. The mere display of a VOLIT is enough to count as an order:QUEEN OF HEARTS: RED, NOT WHITE KING OF HEARTS: I’ll inform them immediately. (And sends the pack of cards to paint the white roses red). Grice relies on Austin’s and Ansombe (cited in Intention and Uncertaitny) direction of fit. In the direction of fit proper of the VOLITIVE mode, two big groups are in contrast. The direction of fit may involve the utterer himself, or his co-conversationalist. In one case – the typical conversatonal move – one is ordering; in the second, less obviously conversational, unless we take ‘Grice without an audience’ more seriously than we should – one is exhorting oneself. Grice’s caveat in Aspects of reason tries to simplify the scheme by disallowing a long elaboration of conversational moves proper seeing that he is becoming more and more concerned with self-deliberation that may lead to self-acceptation of one’s own judgements and volitions – with a view of instilling them into one’s conversational partner at a later stage. If Grice was initially attracted to Cook-Wilson’s treatment of the MODVS INTERROGATIVS in ‘Statement and Inference’ – where the ‘statement’ is hyperbolic – he finds such a realm of crucial importance now. INTERROGATION is the mode of deliberation. And again this comes in two varieties or submodes. The typically conversational dyad illustrates one: A: Where did the cat sit? B: On the mat. But a question may be addressed to the utterer himself, even conversationally: A: Where did I say that the cat was sitting? B: On the mat. A: I was talking to myself! Sorry about that. Again, the VOL/JUD – two sides of the same coin of of conversational rationality – apply when it comes to MODVS INTERROGATIVES. In B’s answer above, ‘The cat is on the mat,” B is merely complying with an INFORMATION-SEEKING conversational move – of the JUD type. It may not always be so: A: What shall we do about it? B: Well, get her OUT of the mat, if you say the Dean adores that mat! In A’s conversational move here, the ‘force’ – illocutionary force’ or mode, as Grice prefers, or ‘tropic, as Hare does – his is a tetralogy of sub-atomic particles: the phrastic, the neustic, the tropic, and the clistic – A is not expecting an ANSWER – it’s not a JUD type of a question, it is a question elicitng an ACTION or at least VOLITIVE effect in one’s conversationalist.  Most typically, this type of interrogative can also be self-directed: A: Shall I have rings in my finger? B: Wherever you go! A: I wasn’t expecting YOUR answer. That was rude. It was a self-directed exhortation. Grice can be liberal, and aptly so, when it comes to MODVS, so don’t expect to be having other than the Oxonian philosopher at hand: CAPTAIN: The soldiers are to muster at dawn SARGEANT: Yes sir. Grice – having read Prichard to tears – knows this, whatever the modistae would say, counts as a PERFEFT imperative! Grice happened to expand on felinology at some point. On TWO occasions he used Oxford as a paradigm for language change. He is referring to the Dean of Hartford, whose dog was deemed a _cat_ for college regulations. Grice treasured the clipping from THE TIMES when the successor to the dean’s post addressed the Editor with a simple “My cat is not a dog.” Grice selects such a conversastional move not out of the blue, but because the formalisation (or ‘logical form,’ as he prefers – these were the days when he was giving a joint seminar with his former tutee P. F. Strawson on ‘Meaning, categories, and logical form’) involves one of Grice’s favourite operators, the inverted iota, introduced by Peano. The logical form of ‘The cat sat on the mat,’ here simplified to ‘The cat IS on the mat’ – terms: ‘the cat’, ‘being on the mat’ – joined by the copula – involves such an operator and the predicates C for cat, and M for ‘to sit on the mat’. (ix)Cx & Mx. Note that the gambit in the conversational game is an utterance by A in the interrogative mode – Grice disregarded the English variant ‘mood’ – And it is a simple one at that: an x- or wh-question. The rudiments of the logical form are maintained. And the VOLITION behind the making of the move is that B supplied the incognitum. ‘Where?’ ‘On the mat’. In other words. A is presenting B with an open formula, without truth or any other value satisfactoriness, and is pleading B to supply the required information. So it is to the answer to which we should direct our attention now. ‘The cat sat on the mat.’ That is a factually satisfactory response, as Grice has it, which gets factually SATISFIED if the cat happens to sat on the mat. If the underlying psychological attitude expressed by the question was the questioner’s VOLITION, the central psychological attitude in B’s response is the expression of a BELIEF, or JUDGEMENT. And B is offering his judgement. Under the circumstances where the principle of conversational helpfulness operates, and we see the exchange as vital to both A’s and B’s survivals, we can imagine that B EXPECTS to be believed. This would still have B’s response count as an EXHIBITIVE move – he is merely expressing his belief – this is part of what is entailed by saying that he engages in a conversational move in the INDICATIVE, now, not interrogative, mode. Grice distinguishes two sub-modes under this modality. Indicative is just the self-centred mode. Informative is the tag Grice uses to label the mood when addressed to the utterer’s addressee. ‘For your information, she sat on the mat.’ Whether A happens to JUDICATE that the cat sat on the mat is beyond B’s capabilities, and not really part of the conversational game! The Dean of Hertford’s cat requires a tweak here and there. Why was Grice so obsessed with the linguistic idiosyncrasy of just ONE Oxford college. Deep down, it boils down to Cratylus’s distinction physei/thesei. There is nothing in the NATURE of the Dean’s dog that makes it a cat – or rather, alternatively, it is ALL about NATURE – as experienced at Oxford – that allows us to refer to ‘the cat’ – a nominal, when both conversationalists are aware that the denotatum is a _dog_.  Grice liked a shaggy-dog story, too. The only linguistic example he gives in ‘Utterer’s meaning, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning’ for analysis – as opposed as for illustration (“If I shall then be helping the grass to grow I shall have no time for reading,” “Smith is a philosopher,” “Smith beat Nowell” – concerns Smith’s dog, Fido, who happens to be hirsute. Grice spends the final fragment of the conference on the M-intention behind an ascription of hairy-coatedness to Fido. We can illustrate that conversationally at Hertford. A: She doesn’t look shaggy to me. B. But she is! In System G, every bit counts, so ‘the cat is on the mat’ involves a term-forming iota operator, two predicates, one for cat, one for mat.  Grice’s reference to ‘shaggy =def hairy-coated’ is the ONLY example where Grice explores what philsoophers at Oxford were dubbing ‘semantics,’ so it is worth expanding. A Where did the cat sit? B: What cat? A: The shaggy one. In “Utterer’s meaning, sentence-meaning, and word-meaning” – reprinted by Searle in The philosophy of language only to give foil to Chomsky insulting Grice as an unredeemable behaviourist – Grice is concerned with the topic of his joint seminar with Strawson on ‘Meaning, categories, and logical form’: the referential and the attributive. For ‘referential’, pouring scorn on Ryle’s ‘Fido’-Fido theory of meaning (later relabelled by Aftershave Schiffer as Fido-Fido theory of psychological attitudes Grice does not care to provide a NOUN SUBSTANTIVM proper – like ‘dog’ or ‘cat’ – but a NOMEN SUBSANTIVM PROPER, ‘Fido’ – Smith’s cat. Anyone familiar with the Little Oxford Dictionary is aware that ‘Fido’ is NOT part of a language – so it cannot be ‘Fido’ that Grice is seriously thinking when dealing with ‘word-meaning.’ He was aware that providing an analysis of the NOMINAL PHRASE ‘the dog’ would have complicated the discussion infinitely and he only had a few more minutes to spare.  It is his choice of the NOMEN ADJECTIVUM that becomes the semantic piece then, the attribute to the substantial type – Searle had been so obsessed by Strawson’s obsession with this that he could not get out of Oxford with a degree unless it were on ‘Problems of meaning, regarding the sense and reference distinction’ (deposited at the Bodleian library – and relying mainly on Grice). The NOMEN ADJECTIVUM Grice chooses is ‘hirsute’ or ‘shaggy.’ This is sematnic enough. ‘Shaggy’ involves the suffix -y which featured in Grice’s favourite poem (“Twas brillig and…’): a mere sequel to the brillig. There is shag, and there is shaggy. And cats at Hertford, as owned by the Dean, can be shaggy. A: Did you see her? B: See who? A: The cat – the dean’s cat: the shaggiest I’ve ever seen. B: And shedding all that hair on the old mat, I assume. If Grice disallows ‘the cat’ or ‘the dog’ but opts for a proper name – ‘Fido’ – he knew what he was doing. It is in ‘Vacuous name’ that he deals with the ‘the’. In ‘Logic and Conversation’ he merely presents ‘the’ as equivant to the Peano inverted iota, and the course of the lecture he gives examples providing a contrast with the choice of ‘a’ – which falls under ‘some (at least one) rather. A: Smith is meeting a woman this evening. B: You mean THE wife! A: Indeed. His own one! In ‘Vacuous names,’ he is considering definite descriptions in general, and has used the delta symbolism to represent them: the δ versus THE δ. This is perhaps the least imaginative of Grice’s formalisms, since people abuse capitals regardless. Grice didn’t. To use ‘the δ’ versus ‘THE δ’ made all the difference in the world to him. What he means is more difficult to grasp. Posssesives don’t help. When a δ is prefaced by a possessive as in Smith’s butler or Smith’s staberbasher, the ‘the’ has mysteriously disappeared. But not the phenomenon of definitely describing.  In listing ‘all,’ ‘some (at least one),’ ‘the’ – in that order, Grice knew what he was doing. The second amounts to an INDEFINITE description; the third is the DEFINITE DESCRIPTION proper, which eventually gets ‘reduced’ by Peano in terms of the ‘all’.  Grice specifically applies the square-brackets here A: The king of France is not bald. B. I never said he was. A. I know. But we are disagreeing on different grounds. I just claim that he is not bald for the simple reason that France has long NOT been a monarchy.In symbols ~[((x)Fx] & Gx The inverted iota operator is thus reducible – as Russell knew from Peano – on account of the fact that to utter ‘the’ is a roundabout way of engaging oneself into a longer, more otiose, conversationally inappropriate move featuring only the universal quantifier and the horseshoe. Does this relate to ‘the δ’ versus ‘THE  δ‘? It does. But in a subtler way. The way Grice defines a dossier has Urmsonian reverberations. Urmson had been discussing for The Aristotelian Society, under the topic of ‘Intensionality’: URMSON:  Mrs. Smith’s husband just passed by. MRS. URMSON: You mean the postman! Urmson notes that there is conversational desideratum of what he calls not relation – as Grice does – or relevance – as Nowell-Smith and Strawson do (Strawson’s platitude of conversational relevance) – but APPOSITENESS. You choose the predicate following the definite descriptor that fits best. In Urmson’s conversation, the ‘the’ in “Mrs. Smith’s huband” is obscured by the presence of the possessive, but IT IS there in terms of logical form.  For Grice, ‘the δ’ is the standard, DEFAULT, use of a definite description. It does not indicate anything about the utterer’s ACQUAINTANCE (alla Russell, by ‘description’ that is) with the denotatum of ‘the δ.’  In contrast, ‘THE δ’ is used ONLY when the utterer is ACQUAINTED not just by description but by direct perception, with the denotatum of ‘THE δ,’ and HOPES that his co-conversationalist will too. Borrowing (but not returning – he was his own tutee, after all) from Strawson, Grice uses variants of ‘identifying.’ Strawson had after all pre-dated Grice in circulating (without Grice’s consent) such platitudes as the desideratum of conversational knowledge, the desideratum of conversational ignorance (‘you only make conversational moves which are meant to INFORM your co-conversationalist) and the desideratum of conversational relevance. What more do you want? Strawson feels we still want ‘IDENFITYING’: it’s IDENTIFYING reference that we require. In their joint seminar on ‘Meaning, categories, and logical form’ Grice and Strawson had presented four contrasting scenarios: involving the identifying-reference for a substantial type in a first-order predicate calculus and an identifying-reference for a substantial type (i. .e. still occupying the subject slot) in the more Platonist talk. Their examples concern Bunbury and disinterestedness. A: I never met anyone more disinterested than Bunbury. B: You should go to a church sometime. In his move, A is ascribing disinterestedness to Bunbury, and proves an IDENTIFYING reference for it. The second scenario concerns an alleged identifying reference to ‘disinterestedness.’ At this point, Grice and Strawson use ‘exist’ as ‘… is a spatio-temporal continuant’ for substantial types (subject-slot) in a first-order predicate calculus.  A: Bunbury doesn’t exist. B: He does. He is in the next room. This Grice and Strawson contrast with the issue at hand: A Real disinterestedness doesn’t exist. B. It does. Bunbury is disinterested. Grice and Strawson consider that B’s move above does not quite offer an IDENTIFYING REFERENCE that will allow the conversationalist to ‘VERIFY’ the denotatum. It totally contrasts with ‘Bunbury is in the next room’. ‘Bunbury is really disinterestedness’ does not help verify that real disinterestedness can be occupy the subject-lot in a conversational move that will prove to be SATISFACTORY (factually or alethically satisfactory) or SATISFIED (verified) especially in the context of one of Wilde’s silliest saloon comedies! It is these references to the mechanism of ‘IDENTIFYING’ that Grice is reviving when looking for a tag for ‘the ‘ versus ‘THE ‘.  The fact that Donnellan was making some noise with ‘referential’ and attribute’ did not help, and Grice is adamant about his distancing from Donnellan. Grice could see where Donnellan was going. A non-Oxonian if ever there was one, worshipped by equally non-Oxonians like Dummett, it would not be long, Grice rightly foresaw, before Donnellan’s alleged distinction is taken as ‘semantic,’ not ‘pragamtics’ – or ‘definable in logical form’ rather than in a mere conversational illustration via implicature, as Grice would have it (He detested the semantic/pragmatic distinction, so-called).  Hence his rather ugly-sounding, admittedly, of ‘the ‘ as NON-IDENTIFICATORY (by default) and ‘THE ‘ as IDENTIFICATORY.  It will take a generation of philosophers at Oxford, led by Sainsbury and Over, predated by Evans in ‘Varieties of reference’ to turn Grice’s ‘identificatory’/’non-identificatory’ distinction into the mainstream.  In “Vacuous Names,” aware of the developments in the logic of belief and desire, Grice attempts a formalism. His task to hand then is ‘Peter wants to marry Paul’s sister – who doesn’t really exist.’ ‘want’ or ‘desire’ is thus external to the scope of a ‘vacuous’ predicate. When it comes to our basic dyad, the formalism is different. For B’s move ‘The cat sat on the mat’, we would have VOLIT_AJUDGE_B(ix)CxMx This is the first clause in Grice’s analysis of ‘Meaning,’ already proferred for the Oxford Philosophical Society in 1948. Not enough, though. We need a second VOLIT, or intention, as applies to (i) itself. The combination yields: VOLIT_AJUDGE_B(ix)CxMx & VOLIT_AJUDGE_BVOLIT_AJUDGE_B(ix)CxMx What the elongated formula does is merely express the fact that a necessary condition if not sufficient for the conversational player to have made the conversational move he did intend to make is that his co-conversationalist will recognise the intention – is this enough for the m-intention, as Grice rather circularly calls the intention that CONSTITUTES ‘meaning’ or signification’? One would think so. But Strawson did not. It is sad to think that ‘Meaning’ was submitted to The Philosophical Review by Strawson, only to have it criticised in his own submission a couple of years later. In ‘Intention and Convention in speech acts,’ the former tutee strikes back. The rat-infested case, as the locus classicus came to be known, was the first move in an intricate series of challenges with ‘alleged counter-examples’ to Grice’s analysis which he coped the best way he could. Eventually, he gives up and has to recourse to the negation of an existential clause (Ex). This (Ex) now applies to an VOLIT by the conversationalist, but unlike the iota operator, it does not apply to the DICTUM, the cat sat on the mat.  Rather the negation of the existential clause notably applies to the conversationalist’s VOLITing that there should be no inference element in the calculation of what has been signified by the conversationalist SUCH THAT he intends himself, but not his co-conversationalist, to rely on. If A is a real estate agent, and guiding B through the house. A: The house is neat. B. I don’t like the sight of that dead rat there. This is the first type of Strawson-type of alleged counter-example. Strawson fabricates the scenario such that A is AWARE that the rat has been placed there as a ‘natural’ sign of the house being rat-infested. It is an inference element that A has but does not with B to share. The obvious response, and apt one at that, is that in communication – never mind conversation – all should be above board – to use Blackburn’s colloquialism in Speading the words: groundings in the philosophy of language. Grice is expansive on this in a paper he wrote the year before he died. He is considering ‘hinting’ and ‘suggesting.’ If the ‘hint’ is so weak, such that the conversationalist cannot rely on the fact that his co-conversationalist will get it, nothing has been HINTED. Nothing has been communicated. The formal way to deal with this – in a way that annoyd Putnam (“You are too formal, Grice!”) was via the negation of an existential clause whose scope would be those inference elements which build up to BOTH the planning and the processing of a single conversational move. But while in ‘Meaning,’ and its sequels he would explore the intricacies of what it means for a conversationalist to have SAID that the cat is on the mat (which would rely on ‘procedures’ both basic and resultant) in more informal terms, the big contrast is what the conversationalist has NOT explicitly conveyed. In a twist of a common philosophical idiom, Grice uses ‘imply,’ not as a variant of ‘implication,’ but as a synonym for ‘insinuate,’ a rhetorical term of art. So, if, as the Longman Dictionary says, ‘a cat’ may be metaphorical for ‘the nasty woman’ and to be on the mat, is to be beaten, the utterer may well be conversationally implying that the nasty woman is being beaten. At this point, Grice wants his audience to recapitulate and to reconsider the important philosophical point Grice is making. He is assuming both conversationalists to be rational. Even though the processes for the move-making and the move-construal involve DIFFERENT strategies or hermeneutical processes.  The making of a move is a goal-directed piece of abductive reasoning. The understanding of a move involves an abductive piece of reasoning where the end now is to catch what the other conversationlist is trying to ‘communicate.’ While Grice uses ‘meaning’ informally, he is diverging from his classical background. No such thing as ‘meaning’ in the classics! Indeed, while Grice’s immediate source is Stevenson, Stevenson is clear that he will use ‘mean’ in a metaphorical way to represent what a barometer ‘means,’ for example. The classical parlance is into ‘signifying.’ In his lectures on ‘Meaning,’ Grice is clear that while the utterance is NOT a sign, it is the vehicle by which an utterer signifies. de Saussure had been using ‘signifier’ for a different thing, but the formation is the same: active participle of ‘signify’. It is the utterer who signifies. And it is the utterer, qua conversationalist, who signifies as per a conversational implicature. When M. M. Warner commented on all this, he was a purist, -- ‘Notes on Grice,’ Unpublished --. Grice is being a purist in that ‘implicature’ is not ‘implicatum’. The ‘implicature’ is in the making of the move. The implicatum is what has been communicated. It was, sadly, Strawson, in a piece meant to be critical of Grice – and presenting his ‘rat-infested’ alleged counterexample – who makes the point. What Grice is after is not really ‘meaning’ – or understanding – it is communication, simpliciter. The idea that the rational will can calibre the shades of meaning is a commonplace of rhetoric, but it is the commonplace on which Grice bases his theory. It is a flouting or abuse or manipulation of a procedure meant to be rational. In later stages of his career, when re-elaborating his theory with Warnock, Grice came to see the point more clearly.  He is postulating a COMMON GOAL to conversation, which is the exchange of information AND the institution of DECISIONS – both aletic and buletic moves are being held as crucial.  Things such as TRUST, on which Warnock had based his Morals in The Object of Morality, or Hampshire in his Thought and Action – are deemed essential. If we break them in jokes like ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’, it is only a very silly philosopher who won’t see the light. So Grice can rest assured that there is long tradition, mainly along Kantian lines, which sees these ‘transcendental pragmatic’ conditions are making communication possible. It may be deemed a WEAK transcendental justification in that a move like ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’ IS possible. The conditions apply to the EXISTENCE of an APPROPRIATE conversational move, not to the existence of a conversational move as such. Grice never cared to provide an answer to Hegel’s challenge to the cunning of conversational reason. But in this respect Hegel proves more Kantian than Kant. And if Grice leaves his Conversational Immanuel as a given, it is one that gets deemed and redeemed in history, in local history, which I the Oxford of the days in which Grice lived. In the ALPHABETICAL INDEX TO CONCEPTS we will consider the intricacies of some of the conceptual machinery adopted by Grice, notably as it comes to the types of expectation in behaviour: the desideratum of conversational clarity, the desideratum of candour, the principle of conversational self-love, the principle of conversational benevolence, and the principle of conversational helpfulness. All these technicisms are meant ironically by Grice, as is his fastidious taxonomy of what is explicitly conveyed – the expliciture-cum-explicature – and what is merely implicitly conveyed – the implicature/implicature, it being conventional or non-conventional all non-natural, and if non-conventional, only conversational when calculable in terms of those procedures that make conversation a type of RATIONAL COOPERATION, and not, say, an exercise in a Renaissance court by Castiglione! REPLY TO RICHARDS 1986  Oxford Philosophical Society  cocktail at Blackwell’s  Date: January 1, 1949 (Publication day of Probability and Induction) Characters: William Kneale (Senior): Fellow of Exeter College, author of the hour. H. Paul Grice (Junior): Fellow of St John’s, ever-probing.  Kneale: The noise in the Norrington Room is positively inductive, Paul. One hopes the probability of finding another gin is high." 2. Grice: "High, perhaps, but is it objective? Or merely a matter of your own 'rational expectation' based on the tray's current trajectory?" 3. Kneale: "Cruel. After four hundred pages of labor, you’d deny me a simple frequentist’s thirst-quencher." 4. Grice: "Never. I was merely reminiscing about the pre-war Common Rooms—less crowded, more... logically transparent." 5. Kneale: "Ah, the simpler days. Before the Clarendon Press became quite so demanding of our time." 6. Grice: "And before we felt the need to populate the universe with quite so many 'necessary' entities. Your book, William... it’s a magnificent edifice." 7. Kneale: "I detect a 'but' lurking in your implicature, Paul." 8. Grice: "Not a 'but', a probe. This notion of 'necessity' you apply to natural laws—it seems to sprout quite a few... let’s call them ontological excrescences." 9. Kneale: "Excrescences? I should hope they are structural supports! Without a real connection between properties, induction is a mere gambler’s hope." 10. Grice: "But must we buy the connection at the cost of a new category of being? I find myself wondering if the 'necessity' isn't just a feature of how we must talk to remain cooperative." 11. Kneale: "You want to reduce my metaphysics to a set of conversational rules? That’s a bold bit of reductionism, even for you." 12. Grice: "I prefer 'parsimony'. Why suppose a knot in the world when a habit in the mind—or a rule in the language—does the job?" 13. Kneale: "Because the mind’s habits don't make the bridge collapse or the sun rise. The world has a 'must' of its own." 14. Grice: "And yet, when we say it 'must' rise, are we not merely signaling our refusal to entertain the alternative as a move in the game?" 15. Kneale: "A game with very high stakes, Paul. I remember us debating this on a walk near the Cherwell in ’38." 16. Grice: "Yes, the punts were drifting, and you were already convinced that Hume had left us all quite homeless." 17. Kneale: "He did! He left us in a world of 'loose and separate' events. I’ve spent years trying to glue them back together with something sturdier than 'custom'." 18. Grice: "I just worry your glue is a bit... thick. These 'necessities'—they’re like extra limbs on a theory that should be lean. Kneale: "If a theory is too lean, it cannot carry the weight of science. Look at the room—Wood and Austin are watching us. They expect a defense." 20. Grice: "Let them watch. I’m just looking at the linguistic nuances. If 'probability' is an objective relation, does it 'exist' like this glass of gin?" 21. Kneale: "It exists as a principle of rational belief. Don't tell me you've become a pure nominalist while I wasn't looking." 22. Grice: "I’m a 'don't-multiply-entities-unless-absolutely-forced-to'—ist. I suspect your excrescences might be pruned by a closer look at what we mean by 'mean'." 23. Kneale: "Always back to meaning! Well, the book is out. The excrescences are now public property. Grice: "And I shall enjoy every page of them, William. Even if I spend the whole night trying to shave them off with Ockham’s razor." 25. Kneale: "Do your worst, Paul. But for now, let us toast to the 'happier days'—which, if my induction is correct, are exactly what we are having right now. Epilogue Extract from the "University Intelligence" column of The Oxford Gazette, March 1949: "The Oxford Philosophical Society recently held a most agreeable cocktail party at Blackwell’s to celebrate Mr. W. C. Kneale’s Probability and Induction. The evening was marked by the usual high-spirited hair-splitting. It is reported that Mr. H. P. Grice, with his customary surgical wit, was seen cornering the author near the philosophy shelves. Grice was heard to inquire whether the 'necessities' championed in the text weren't merely 'ontological excrescences' that might be better treated by a stiff dose of linguistic analysis. Mr. Kneale, unruffled, suggested that without such excrescences, philosophy would be as flat as a stale ale. The debate continued until the shop’s bell signaled a final, and most necessary, departure." — O. P. Wood Would you like to explore Grice’s specific counter-arguments to Kneale’s theory or perhaps another Oxford-centered philosophical dialogue? John Maynard Keynes died in  April 1946, and H.P. Grice’s "Reply to Richards" was published much later in 1986. Since Keynes was deceased long before Grice's major works on implicature were published, this meeting takes place at Hatchards in Piccadilly—London’s oldest and most prestigious bookstore—during a late promotional event for a reprint of Keynes's A Treatise on Probability (originally 1921).  Setting: Hatchards, Piccadilly, London. Late 1945. Characters: Keynes (The celebrated economist/logician) and Grice (The young Oxford don).  Grice: Lord Keynes, I hope I’m not violating a maxim of quantity by lingering, but I’ve been waiting an hour to speak with you.  Keynes: Not at all. For a man of your obvious intent, the quantity of waiting is a sunk cost.  Grice: I’ve just finished your Treatise on Probabilityfor the third time. Keynes: My "logical relation" between propositions? Most treat it as a relic of 1921. Grice: On the contrary, your idea that probability is a logical relation, not just a frequency, is revolutionary for philosophy. Keynes: You find the "degree of rational belief" compelling, then? Grice: Deeply. I’m particularly struck by how you define irrelevance—where adding information doesn't change the probability. Keynes: Ah, the "weight of argument." Most economists ignore the logic behind the numbers. Grice: I suspect that what we say about probability is governed by the same logic as what we mean in conversation.  Keynes: Meaning? You’re suggesting a calculus of intent? Grice: Exactly. Just as you seek the rational ground for belief, I seek the rational ground for cooperation in speech. Keynes: A noble, if perhaps optimistic, pursuit. People are rarely as logical as my equations. Grice: But they intend to be understood. That intention is the "logical relation" of the exchange. Keynes: (Smiling) You’re trying to turn my probability into a theory of communication. Grice: Your work provides the bridge. It suggests that logic isn't just about truth, but about the justification for our leaps of faith. Keynes: And what is a conversation but a series of leaps of faith? Grice: Precisely. I actually quote your definition of relevance in my recent notes. Keynes: You’ve published this? Grice: Not yet. I’m still refining the "cooperative principle." Keynes: Well, I appreciate the rigor. It’s rare to find such an analytical eye for the "Treatise" these days. Grice: It’s the foundation for everything I hope to do with language. Keynes: I see. And where do you hold your fellowship, Mr. Grice?  Grice: St John’s College, Oxford, Lord Keynes.  Keynes: Oxford? (He chuckles, signing the book with a flourish). I must say, I appreciate the genuine interest—especially seeing that you come from The Other Place.  Grice: We do read at Oxford, I assure you—mostly to see what you've discovered first at Cambridge.  Grice would often wished to explore how Grice’s maxims directly parallel the logical relations in Keynes’s Treatise on Probability? This conversation is set on  June 14, 1938, at the Richmond (part of the Randolph Hotel) in Oxford.  Paul Grice, newly appointed Lecturer at St John’s College, is 25. William Golding, who recently completed his Diploma in Education at Brasenose, is 26. They have known each other through the tight-knit circle of Oxford "Greats" and English scholars since their undergraduate days.  Golding: It’s the silence of the fossil record that haunts me, Paul. We treat the Neanderthal as a failed experiment, but what if they simply experienced the world with a different kind of clarity?  Grice: You’re suggesting a cognitive gap, then? Not just a lack of tools, but a lack of... well, what we’re doing right now.  Golding: Precisely. I’m imagining a novel—a story of the last of them. I want to show their "people" without the clutter of our modern logic. Grice: A noble aim, William, but a linguistic minefield. If they don't have our logic, how do they mean anything at all?  Golding: That’s the rub. I want to write from insidetheir heads. But how can a Sapiens reader—a creature of syntax and irony—ever truly understand a creature that might not even possess a "self" in the way we do? Grice: You're touching on the very mechanics of communication. To understand them, you must first acknowledge that meaning isn't just about the words used. Golding: Go on. I’m all ears, though I suspect you’re about to tell me my Neanderthals are impossible. Grice: Far from it. Think of it this way: when we speak, I intend for you to recognize that I want you to believe something. It’s a nested intention. Golding: But my "People"—the Neanderthals—they don't "intend" to manipulate each other’s minds. They share "pictures." Grice: Ah, "pictures." That’s the key. For a Sapiensto understand your Neanderthal, the Sapiens must perform a sort of radical translation. Golding: And the reverse? Could my Neanderthal, Lok, ever understand us—the "New People"?  Grice: To be blunt, William: the reverse would be otiose. Golding: Otiose? That’s a harsh bit of Oxford phrasing, even for you. Grice: I mean it technically. Communication requires a shared Cooperative Principle. If the "New People" operate on deception and complex inference, and Lok operates on pure sensory immediacy, the bridge only works one way. Golding: You mean the "higher" intellect can simulate the "lower," but the "lower" cannot even conceive of the "higher’s" complexity? Grice: Exactly. A Sapiens can strip away his layers of conversational implicature to see the "picture." But the Neanderthal lacks the machinery to reconstruct what isn't there. He sees the arrow; he cannot see the intent to kill. Golding: (Writing frantically) "The arrow is a twig that grows suddenly." He sees the effect, never the motive.  Grice: Precisely. He interprets the world, but he doesn't interpret intentions. To him, a lie is not a falsehood; it is simply a break in the world’s "picture." Golding: This is it, Paul. This is the tragedy of the book. The tragedy of a mind that is too innocent to be "cooperative" in your sense. Grice: It’s a philosophical goldmine. You’re using fiction to test the limits of where "meaning" ends and pure "being" begins. Golding: I’ve been struggling with how to make the reader feel that loss. Your point about the one-way mirror of understanding... it makes the Neanderthal’s extinction feel like a linguistic death as much as a physical one. Grice: It is the loss of a certain kind of "truth" that doesn't require evidence. Golding: Thank you, Paul. Truly. You’ve helped me see that the fiction isn't just a story about "cavemen"—it’s a study of the dark spaces where our communication fails. Grice: Just don't make them too poetic, William. They’re still eating marrow with their hands.  Golding: (Smiling) Oh, they’ll be visceral. But thanks to you, they’ll be philosophically sound.  Grice would often wished to explore how Golding's service in the Royal Navy during the war eventually transformed these early philosophical ideas into the final draft of The Inheritors. In 1918, at their home in  Harborne, Mabel Felton Grice homeschooled her sons, Herbert Paul (age 5) and John Derek (age 3), as her husband's business began to fail.    Philosophy Documentation Center Philosophy Documentation Center Bedtime at Harborne, 1918  Mabel: Rest now, Paul and Derek. Tonight we reach the Hill Difficulty in Mr. Bunyan’s Pilgrim. GRICE: "Will Christian see the Lions, Mother? You said they were at the top."  Mabel: "Yes, but first he must face the 'Dangers' that lurk in the bypasses."  Derek: "Is the bypass a scary road?"  Mabel: "It is. Bunyan writes: 'The name of the one was Danger, and the name of the other Destruction'."  Grice: "Mother, why are they written with a Capital Initial? Like they are people?"  Mabel: In an Allegory, Paul, a word like Danger is more than a word; it is a Living Thing that meets you on the path. GRICE: (Awestruck) So the name is the thing? If I walk into Danger, I am walking into a person? Mabel: "Precisely. Now, Derek, what does the name Danger imply for the pilgrim? Derek: "It means... mind your step? Or something will bite?" Mabel: "It implies the Hidden Risk of leaving the straight path. It is the peril of the soul."  Paul: "And Destruction? That sounds final. Like a total end." Mabel: "It is the Utter Ruin of those who seek a shortcut. Formalist and Hypocrisy went that way and never returned." Derek: "I shall stay on the path. I don't like Mr. Destruction." Paul: "But Mother, if the names tell you exactly what they are, why would anyone go in?" Mabel: "Because, Paul, they think they know better than the Capital Letters. They think it’s just a path, not a Choice." Paul: "The names are like... logical signs. If 'A' is Danger, then 'A' will hurt you." Mabel: "Spoken like a little scholar. What of Despair? We saw him in the Swamp earlier." Derek: "He makes you muddy and sad!" Mabel: "It implies a Weight of Sin so heavy you cannot swim." Paul: "It's a miracle Christian gets through. The names are everywhere, watching." Mabel: "They are. But remember Faithful. His name implies he will never leave you." Derek: "I like Faithful better than the monsters." Paul: "The names... they don't just describe. They command."  Mabel: "They do. Now sleep, before Sloth catches you both. Grice often wondered how these early lessons in naming influenced Grice’s later theories on meaning and implication. RETROSPECTIVE EPILOGUE. Grice presents four cases: DICTIVE FORMAL II NON DICTIVE FORMAL III DICTIVE NON FORMAL IV NON DICTIVE NON FORMAL kk Make four conversation, four moves each, between Grice and Strawson with Grice first saying each sentece: 1) “The President of the British Academy is in his office.” 2) “My brother-in-law lives on a peak in Darien, his great aunt, on the other hand, was a nurse in The Great War” 3) “Heigh-ho” (meaning something like Well, that’s the way the world goes. 4) “Excuse me sir.” Ushering Strawson through the door with an elaborate courtly bow. –There was more than philosophy in the life of H. P. Grice. Indeed, rather tetrically, the TIMES obituary read: “Professional philosopher and amateur cricketer” – I suppose for W. C. Grace it would have read the opposite. “PHILOSOOPHER AND …” FILM. Grice held the presidency of the Oxford Film Society. Oxford Gazette: Issue No. 3245 – April 15, 1954 Oxford Film Society Presents Norma Shearer Retrospective Last Tuesday evening, April 13, the Oxford Film Society delighted its membership with a special screening of "The Women" (1939), starring the celebrated Norma Shearer. The event drew a full house to the Bodleian Theatre, testament to both Shearer's enduring reputation and the Society's growing influence under the presidency of H. P. Grice. Before the curtains rose, President Grice took to the podium, offering words of admiration for Shearer. "Few actresses have so successfully embodied both strength and subtlety in equal measure. Norma Shearer’s performances are not merely dramatic—they are an education in character, wit, and the art of conversation," Grice declared. "Her presence on screen elevates the filmic art, inspiring not only her fellow actors but all who engage with cinema as a form of dialogue." The audience responded with a round of applause, echoing Grice’s appreciation for Shearer’s legacy. Following the screening, members lingered for discussion, many remarking on Shearer's nuanced portrayal and Grice's thoughtful introduction. The evening was judged a resounding success, further confirming the Oxford Film Society's role as a cultural beacon under Grice’s stewardship. Oxford Gazette: Issue No. 3298 – February 16, 1955 Oxford Film Society Presents “The Third Man” – President Grice’s Remarks On Wednesday, February 15, 1955, the Oxford Film Society hosted a special evening screening of “The Third Man” (1949) at the Bodleian Theatre. The anticipation was palpable, with members and guests filling every seat in the auditorium to revisit what many have called one of the greatest achievements in British cinema. Prior to the film, President H. P. Grice addressed the Society with a set of preliminary remarks that were as incisive as they were appreciative. “Few films,” Grice began, “manage to combine such technical brilliance, narrative subtlety, and atmospheric intensity as ‘The Third Man.’ It is, in my view, one of the true gems of British cinema—and not just from a philosophical perspective.” Grice went on to praise the film’s distinctive cinematography, the legendary zither score by Anton Karas, and the nuanced performances by Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, and Orson Welles. He highlighted director Carol Reed’s “masterful orchestration of suspense and moral ambiguity,” noting that the film invites its audience to reflect not only on postwar Vienna but on the murkier territories of human nature itself. “We are reminded,” Grice concluded, “that great cinema, like great philosophy, asks us to look more closely—at shadows, at motives, and at the unspoken truths between the lines. ‘The Third Man’ remains as compelling and enigmatic today as it did upon its first release.” The screening was followed by an animated discussion among Society members, many echoing Grice’s sentiments. The evening was widely regarded as a highlight of the Society’s calendar, reaffirming its reputation for both cultural discernment and intellectual engagement under President Grice’s guidance.  CRICKET. “Professional philosopher and amateur cricker” the Times obituary for Grice read. Provide three conversations during a cricket match, the three of them having Grice as Batsman. The first in 1928. Supply ten conversational moves of the type that players utter and empire utter and provide the report of the game in Clifton Gazette praising Grice. The second make it at Corpus Christi where Grice also played. Have the report published in invented issue no. in 1933 of The Pelican. The third, have Grice, now tutorial fellow at St. John’s playing for the demi-johns, the cricket club he founded – have this as the opening of the club (Check date). Provide the report made by the official newsletter of the club, praising Grice as founder, and noting his activities in the North Oxford Cricket Club, to which he belonged before founding the Demi-Johns. In each case have the three conversations, ten moves, with interjections, etc. by players – including Grice as batsman in all, and shouts from empire, etc. Just before the reports. Provide three conversations during three cricket matches – ten conversational moves each, with Grice as batsman, with interjections by players and empires and have it as Clifton, 1929, Corpus Christi 1932, and Demi-John’s, 1965 Three Matches: H. P. Grice at the Crease Imagined Conversations and Match Reports, 1928–1966I. Clifton: 1928 vs. Marlborough Conversation: Grice, Captain Wilmot, Bowler Jenkins Scene: Clifton College Cricket Pavilion, June 1928. The sun is bright over the field. H. P. Grice, aged 15, laces up his boots as Captain Wilmot enters.  Wilmot: Ready for your innings, Grice? Marlborough’s attack is sharper than last year. Grice: Always ready, sir. I’ve been practicing my straight drive—less theory, more action today. Jenkins (Marlborough’s opening bowler, overhearing): Don’t get too comfortable, Grice. The pitch is quick, and my swing’s a menace.  Grice (smiling): "Theory predicts the ball will swing, Jenkins. Practice shows I can still find the boundary. Wilmot: "That’s the spirit. Remember: cricket is a game of patience and wit. Let’s show Marlborough what Clifton can do. Match Report: Clifton Newsletter Clifton Newsletter, June 1928: "In a spirited contest against Marlborough, Clifton’s XI displayed the best of schoolboy cricket. The standout performance belonged to H. P. Grice, whose elegant batting anchored the innings. Grice amassed 72 runs, finding gaps with a philosopher’s precision and dispatching Jenkins’s swing bowling to all quarters. Clifton posted 201 for 7; Marlborough, despite a late surge, fell short at 187. Grice’s calm under pressure and inventive strokeplay earned high praise from the pavilion, marking him as a cricketer of rare promise." II. Corpus Christi: 1934 vs. Balliol Conversation: Grice, Fellow Batsman Hughes, Opponent Carter Scene: University Parks, Oxford, May 1934. Grice and Hughes, padded up, lean against the fence as Balliol’s Carter warms up.  Hughes: Grice, your last innings against Queen’s was almost mathematical. Are you feeling philosophical or aggressive today? Grice: Perhaps both. Cricket, like philosophy, rewards careful analysis—but sometimes a bold stroke is the best argument. Carter (Balliol’s spinner): You Corpus fellows talk a good game. Let’s see if you can handle my leg-breaks. Grice: "Leg-breaks or syllogisms, Carter—I’ll try not to be outwitted. Hughes: Let’s make our runs count and secure the cup. Corpus expects. Match Report: The Pelican The Pelican, Corpus Christi Magazine, May 1934: "Corpus triumphed over Balliol in a match characterized by tactical acumen and spirited rivalry. The highlight was H. P. Grice’s 89—not out—crafted against Carter’s wily spin. Grice’s mastery of timing and placement turned threatening deliveries into scoring opportunities, guiding Corpus to a total of 242. Balliol, despite a promising start, wilted under the pressure and finished at 210. Grice’s innings was widely acclaimed as a model of composure and ingenuity, sealing victory for Corpus and cementing his reputation as a batsman of distinction." III. Demi-Johns: 1966 vs. Magdalen Gentlemen Conversation: Grice, Teammate Clifford, Rival Drayton Scene: Port Meadow, Oxford, July 1966. Grice, now a seasoned scholar, prepares alongside Clifford as Drayton, Magdalen’s captain, approaches.  Clifford: Grice, you make batting look effortless—are you going to treat us to another lesson in timing?  Grice: "The secret, Clifford, is in anticipation and a dash of conversational implicature. I suggest we keep our intentions clear and our boundaries frequent. Drayton: "Demi-Johns have a formidable reputation, Grice. But Magdalen Gentlemen are not easily bested. Grice: "Cricket is a game of moves and countermoves, Drayton. May the best conversation, and the best cricket, prevail."  Clifford: "Right—let’s put theory into practice one more time. Match Report: The Demi-Johns Chronicle The Demi-Johns Chronicle, July 1966: "In a sunlit encounter at Port Meadow, the Demi-Johns overcame the Magdalen Gentlemen in an absorbing match. H. P. Grice, opening for the Demi-Johns, delivered a vintage performance, scoring 65 with deft footwork and a philosopher’s patience. His partnership with Clifford provided the foundation for a total of 185. Magdalen chased valiantly, but fell short at 173 after a late flurry from Drayton. Grice’s batting attracted praise from all quarters, his elegant cover drives and unerring concentration setting a standard few could match. The Demi-Johns’ victory was celebrated heartily, with Grice’s contribution hailed as exemplary." Conclusion Across three decades and three storied matches, H. P. Grice’s cricketing prowess proved as noteworthy as his philosophical wit. Whether at Clifton, Corpus Christi, or with the Demi-Johns, Grice’s batting drew admiration and anchored his teams to victory—demonstrating that, for Grice, the conversational game and the cricket pitch alike were arenas for skill, analysis, and spirited camaraderie. CHESS. Grice excelled at chess. Provide a conversation with Grice as chess player and a member of the Common Room at St. John’s – make him George Robinson, 1966 – make it a twenty-conversational move conversation with Grice ending by uttering checkmate Chess at St. John’s: Grice vs. Richardson, January 1966 A Thirty-Move Game of Wit and Strategy in the Senior Common Room Scene: Senior Common Room, St. John’s College, Oxford. A winter evening, January 1966. H. P. Grice and George Richardson sit across a well-worn chessboard, tea steaming nearby. Fellows drift through, pausing to watch philosophers at play. • Grice (White): "Shall we begin, George? I promise only moderate cunning tonight." • Richardson (Black): "I expect nothing less, Paul. Let’s see if philosophy improves chess or merely complicates it." Move Grice (White) Richardson (Black) Verbal Exchange 1. e4 e5  Grice: Classic beginnings, Richardso. Like Aristotle—simple principles first.  2. Nf3 Nc6 "I suppose we must defend our premises." 3. Bc4 Bc5"Ah, Italian—much like Oxford debates. Direct, but rarely dull." 4. b4 Bxb4 "A gambit, Paul? Risk and reward, the essence of philosophy." 5. c3 Ba5 "I was feeling adventurous. Besides, chess is the ultimate game of implicature." 6. d4 exd4 "So much for my center. But I have faith in conversational clarity." 7. O-O Nf6 "Castling—order from chaos. If only our Common Room were so tidy." 8. e5 d5 "I see you resist, George. A dialectical move if ever there was." 9. exf6 dxc4 "Material for position—like arguments for truth." 10. Re1+ Kf8 "Check, but not checkmate. It’s early days yet." 11. Ba3+ Kg8 "I sense a weakness in your king’s defenses—no offense." 12. Be7 Qd7 "A queen’s intervention—always dramatic, sometimes decisive." 13. Bxf6 gxf6 "There goes my bishop. The conversational game turns." 14. Qh5 h6 "Threats abound. Is your king anxious, or merely perplexed?" 15. Re3 Kh7 "Preparing my rook for action—always plan ahead, I say." 16. Nd2 Rg8 "A defensive gesture. You know, George, chess is a test of patience." 17. Ne4 Qf5 "Your queen eyes my rook—intentions made clear." 18. g4 Rxg4+ "Boldness! But sometimes one must flout the maxim of caution." 19. Ng3+ Kg6 "And here comes the knight. Philosophy’s wild card." 20. Rg3 Rxg3+ "Exchange of rooks—like a heated debate: both sides lose something." 21. hxg3 Qd3 "Pawn recapture. Even the smallest player matters—Austin would approve." 22. Nf5+ Bxf5 "A tactical skirmish. You’re as wily as ever, George." 23. gxf5+ Kh7 "King flees. Retreat is sometimes the better part of valor." 24. Re7+ Nxe7 "Sacrifices must be made for progress, in chess as in philosophy." 25. Qxf7+ Kh8 "Check again. The king is cornered, yet the argument continues." 26. Qxf6+ Kg8 "Queen’s power is unrivaled—like a well-placed thesis." 27. Qxe7 Qxc3 "Material swings back and forth, but I sense the end is near." 28. Re1 Qxe1+ "A twist! You’ve turned the tables for a moment." 29. Kh2 Qxf2+ "My king steps aside—sometimes discretion trumps assertion." 30. Kh3 Qxf1+ "Check, but allow me to offer the final move."  Grice (White): Qg8# •  Grice: Checkmate, Richardson! A conversational coup, if I may say so.  Richardson: Ingenious, Grice. I concede—though perhaps my arguments lacked sufficient strength. Grice: Strength, clarity, and candor—the chessboard is as philosophical as the Common Room. Care for another cup of tea? Richardson: Only if you promise to limit the checkmates—at least until next term. Observers applaud quietly, and the two philosophers shake hands, their friendly rivalry as lively as their conversation. The evening concludes with laughter, and a renewed appreciation for both chess and philosophy at Oxford. AUCTION BRIDGE. He excelled at auction bridge. Conversation at the Final Table: Oxford Bridge Club Championship, 1965  Grice (South): One no trump. Mary Allen (West): Double. Fairchild (North): Redouble. Morris (East): Two clubs. Grice:  Pass. Mary Allen: Two diamonds. Fairchild: Pass. Morris: Two hearts. Grice: Three no trump. Mary Allen: Pass. Let's see you play that, Grice! Oxford Bridge Club Chronicle  — Issue No. 78, Trinity Term 1965The annual Oxford Bridge Club Championship reached its thrilling conclusion last Thursday evening in the Upper Common Room of Magdalen College. The club was atwitter as four of the sharpest minds in Oxford vied for the coveted silver cup. This year's champion, H. P. Grice, prevailed after an extraordinary final against formidable opponents Mary Allen, John Fairchild, and Peter Morris.The decisive board saw Grice, playing South, declare a bold three no trump contract after a spirited auction. The play was as subtle as a philosophical argument, with Grice executing a flawless squeeze on Allen and Morris, extracting every trick required for victory. Observers remarked on Grice's calm demeanor and ingenious card play, which have become the stuff of legend in Oxford card circles.After the match, Grice was characteristically modest: "Bridge is a game of reason and inference—much like philosophy, only with stiffer penalties for unsound argument." The evening concluded with congratulations all around, and a toast to the new champion. The Chronicle is pleased to note that, under Grice's leadership, interest in the club has never been higher, and the coming year promises more evenings of clever bidding and convivial play. MUSIC. MUSIC was Grice’s passion. Invent a conversation between Grice and his friend George Robinson on attending concert at Albert HAll on Mahler’s Erde cycle and have Grice overpraise Mahler to Robinson’s more guarded impressions – invent date and have Grice refer to The Times review of the concert with specific date. Scene: Royal Albert Hall, London. Evening of October 14, 1966. The grand auditorium has emptied after Mahler’s 'Das Lied von der Erde,' performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis. Soloists: tenor Peter Pears and baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. The air is thick with post-concert excitement, critical chatter, and the lingering resonance of Mahler’s last notes. H. P. Grice and George Richardson, both Oxford dons, step out into the autumn night.  Grice: Richardson, I must say it—Mahler’s 'Das Lied von der Erde' is, in my view, the most beautiful piece of music ever produced. Richardson: Bold words, Grice. More beautiful than Beethoven’s Ninth? Than Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius? Grice: Yes, more beautiful. The fusion of poetry and orchestration, the existential longing—nothing else quite approaches it. Richardson: You’re swept up in the moment. But let us consider the performance itself. Did you find Pears convincing as the tenor? Grice: Exceptionally so. Pears captured the fragility in "Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde." His voice shimmered, translucent, even against Mahler’s orchestral tempest. Richardson: Fischer-Dieskau’s baritone was, as always, authoritative—though some critics say he lacked warmth in "Der Abschied." Grice: Ah, but I felt the restraint gave the final movement its dignity. The way he lingered on "Ewig… ewig…" was achingly perfect. Richardson: Davis kept to brisk tempi, which THE TIMES review this morning found ‘rushed.’ Grice: I read that review. Wood lambasts Davis for ‘impatience’ and ‘lack of nuance.’  Richardson: Frankly, I sympathize. Tradition dictates a slower, more expansive approach, to savor Mahler’s landscapes. Grice: Yet Davis’s pacing brought a clarity to the orchestral colors—especially in the second song. The woodwinds seemed to burst alive, not drown in sentimentality.  Richardson: But tradition has its wisdom. Walter’s Vienna performances, for instance, set the benchmark.13. Grice: And yet, must we always genuflect to tradition? Tonight, I was moved by Davis’s freshness. The LSO was luminous—the strings, almost tactile in their vibrato.14. Richardson: THE TIMES also criticized Pears’s German diction, calling it ‘unidiomatic.’15. Grice: Unidiomatic, perhaps—but Pears’s emotional intelligence transcended mere phonetics. His phrasing in "Von der Jugend" was so limpid, so delicate.16. Richardson: Fischer-Dieskau’s "Der Abschied" lost none of its majesty, even if Davis pressed forward.17. Grice: The critic faulted the horns for ‘blurred attacks’—yet I found their entries haunting, almost spectral, as intended by Mahler.18. Richardson: The review’s harshest point was Davis’s alleged ‘failure to evoke the metaphysical weight’ of the closing, ‘Ewig.’19. Grice: I disagree vehemently. The silence after the last note was profound—the audience hushed, as if suspended between worlds.20. Richardson: That silence is tradition, Paul. But I wonder if Davis earned it, or if Mahler’s score demands it regardless.21. Grice: The conductor’s choices matter. Davis’s subtle cue to Fischer-Dieskau gave the final "Ewig" its breathless expectancy.22. Richardson: Still, THE TIMES argued that the flute solo in "Der Abschied" was ‘unremarkable.’23. Grice: It was understated, yes—but in context, it felt like the very sound of autumn, not mere virtuosity.24. Richardson: You’re describing music as philosophy—perhaps that is your bias.25. Grice: Perhaps. But is not Mahler’s music a meditation on mortality? What is criticism if it fails to grasp the existential undercurrent?26. Richardson: Critics must attend first to execution. Tradition, polish, discipline—these are the pillars.27. Grice: And yet, musical beauty often emerges from risk, from a performer's vulnerability. Pears’s voice cracked slightly on "Die Sonne," but it was heartbreakingly human.28. Richardson: THE TIMES would call that ‘weakness.’29. Grice: I call it authenticity. Mahler’s world is not polished, but lived.30. Richardson: The review also claimed the audience was ‘generous to a fault,’ applauding mediocrity.31. Grice: Were we not genuinely moved? The ovations were spontaneous—a testament not to mediocrity, but to transcendence.32. Richardson: I admit, even I was swept up. The hall was nearly reverent.33. Grice: British concert life is evolving. The 1960s have ushered in daring programming, a democratization of taste.34. Richardson: You think this is progress? Sometimes I wonder if we are losing the old standards.35. Grice: Standards ought to be challenged. Without innovation, music stagnates.36. Richardson: Yet critics are guardians, preserving the canon.37. Grice: Let them guard. But let artists breathe new life into old forms.38. Richardson: We seem to have reached a philosophical impasse, Paul. Grice: Perhaps. But tonight, in the Royal Albert Hall, beauty was realized, not merely preserved. Richardson: I respect your insight, even if I cling to my establishment ways.  October 14, 1966—an unforgettable evening. Have Grice provide details on soloists and what he liked best of it. Invent a conversation between George Richardson and H. P. Grice after attending Convent Garden Meistersinger and Grice complaining it is ‘for children’ – Have Grice refer to THE TIMES review   –  To add here: Imagine a forty-move conversation in specfic date in 1966 between H. P. Grice and George Richardson, his Oxford colleague, as they leave Convent Gardenm and sit at pub nearby (provide name) to discuss performance of Wagner’s MEISTERSINGER, with Grice totally treating the thing as ‘a thing for children’ and Richardson going over THE TIMES review – provide details of performers to make it realistic – discussing what makes it, Richardson wonders, for Grice ‘a thing for children’ or ‘for children’ – go over details of scenes, etc. ..Scene: The Lamb & Flag, Covent Garden, London. Date: May 5, 1966. The pub is bustling with post-performance chatter as H. P. Grice and George Richardson settle at a corner table, programs and a fresh edition of The Times in hand. The air hums with the scent of ale and echoes of Wagner’s "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg." Richardson: Well, Grice, here we are—pints secured, Wagner’s chorus still ringing in my head, and The Times’ critic already sharpening his pen. What did you make of tonight’s Meistersinger? Grice: A triumph in every sense. Covent Garden outdid itself, though I suspect The Times will find a quibble with Sachs’s diction or the pace of the overture. Richardson: (waves the newspaper) On the contrary! The review is almost glowing—except for a sly jab at the “unabashed exuberance” of the apprentices. They single out Hans Hotter’s Sachs as “magisterial.” Grice: And rightly so. Hotter walks that line between genial pedagogue and weary sage. His “Wahn, Wahn” was both a lullaby and a philosophy seminar.Richardson: You called the opera “for children” as we left the theatre. The Times calls it “a mature comedy with youthful spirit.” Are you being puckish, or do you mean it?Grice: Entirely earnest. Wagner, for all his metaphysical baggage, crafts here a world as welcoming as a toybox—full of spectacle, broad humor, even pantomime. It’s a fairy tale for the philosophically inclined.Richardson: But the music! The counterpoint, the elaborate textures—these are not child’s play. Take the quintet in Act III. How does that fit your thesis?Grice: Ah, but the melody floats with such innocence. Remember how Eva’s line hovers? Even a child, unburdened by theory, could be moved. The technical mastery is a vessel, not a barrier.Richardson: Then what of the Beckmesser scenes? Tonight’s reviewer calls him “deliciously cartoonish”—hardly subtle. Is that the childlike element you mean?Grice: Precisely. Beckmesser is a comic villain in the tradition of the Brothers Grimm, exaggerated and ultimately harmless. The chalk episode—marking Sachs’s shoes—is pure slapstick. Richardson: And the townsfolk’s riot with their hobbyhorses and lanterns? In the wrong hands it veers toward pantomime.Grice: Which is exactly why it works. It’s the child’s dream of chaos, safely contained—a festival scene straight from a picture book. Wagner, for once, invites us to laugh without irony.Richardson: Yet Sachs’s meditations are hardly for the nursery. “Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!” That’s German philosophy as much as German folklore.Grice: True. Still, children sense gravity in their fairy tales. The distinction is not between simple and deep, but between exclusion and invitation. Meistersinger invites everyone in, no passwords required.Richardson: The Times notes Anja Silja’s Eva as “radiant and unaffected.” Is her performance central to the accessibility you praise?Grice: Absolutely. Silja’s Eva is playful, impulsive—her little feints with Magdalene in Act I, her impish escape from the masters’ scrutiny. She is every curious child in the audience, peeking behind the grown-ups’ debates.Richardson: And Ernst Kozub’s Walther? His Prize Song earned an ovation and more than a few tears in the gallery.Grice: His Walther is less the tortured artist, more the brave dreamer. The Prize Song itself—its melody is memorable after a single hearing. That’s childlike magic: simplicity that conceals sophistication.Richardson: The chorus, though—The Times marvels at their “precision and warmth.” Did you find the crowd scenes childlike too?Grice: They are Wagner’s playground. The apprentices tumble, the masters grumble. There’s a carnival energy, almost theatrical in its mischief. Even the final pageant feels more game than ceremony.Richardson: Still, Wotan and Tristan this is not. There’s no murder, no apotheosis. Is the “childlike” label just your Oxfordian way of saying “good-hearted”?Grice: Not just good-hearted—open-hearted. The plot’s conflicts are never cruel, only comic or tender. Even Beckmesser gets a gentle send-off, not a villain’s doom.Richardson: The Times reviewer says, “Children in the audience laughed most at Beckmesser’s misfortunes, while their elders wept at Sachs’s renunciation.” Is that the heart of it?Grice: I think so. The opera layers its appeals—mischief for the young, wisdom for the old, but never shutting one group out. It’s a rare Gesamtkunstwerk that makes room for the child’s gaze without condescension.Richardson: Let’s talk staging. Did you notice how the Maypole dominated the set? A village fête, not a philosopher’s coliseum.Grice: And the costuming—primary colors, exaggerated hats, aprons—like an illustration sprung to life. The audience delighted in the parade, as if invited to join.Richardson: What of the conductor, Reginald Goodall? The Times describes his reading as “unhurried, transparent, generous.” Did that add to the sense of accessibility?Grice: Undoubtedly. Goodall allowed scenes to breathe, as if savoring each motif. No rush to profundity, only a steady unfolding. I suspect even a child new to Wagner was never lost.Richardson: You’re building a case. But surely Wagner’s libretto, with all its talk of “holy German art,” isn’t for the young?Grice: Children ignore the slogans and cling to the stories. “Holy German art” might pass them by, but the shoemaker’s kindness, the lovers’ wit, these linger. Besides, Wagner’s greatest lesson here is in play, not polemic.Richardson: You’d say the same for the music? The fugues, the intricate ensembles?Grice: Fugues are but games of hide-and-seek. Listen with a child’s ear and you hear questions, answers, echoes, and surprises. The complexity is a playground, not a fortress. Richardson: Let’s get personal: Did you love Meistersinger as a boy? Grice: My father played the overture for me when I was seven. I remember the trumpet calls, the crash of the final chord—a summons to adventure, not analysis. The rest followed, but the delight never faded. Richardson: So, in your view, the “childlike” quality is not a lessening, but a broadening—a kind of radical hospitality?Grice: Precisely. Meistersinger wears its wisdom lightly, invites all to the table, and spares us tragedy in favor of festival. It’s Wagner’s least Wagnerian work, and therefore his most lovable.Richardson: The Times concludes, “In an age weary of irony, Meistersinger offers sincerity without naivety.” I see you’ve beaten them to the punch.Grice: For once, the critic and the philosopher are aligned. Shall we raise a glass to that rare harmony?Richardson: With pleasure. To Wagner, Hotter, Silja, Goodall—and to the children in all of us.Grice: And may our seriousness never outweigh our delight.Richardson: One last question—would you bring your own child to the next Meistersinger?Grice: Without hesitation. If she’s bored, she’s still better off for the attempt. But I wager she’ll be humming the Prize Song all the way home.Richardson: Then perhaps, after all, Wagner intended this opera not just for children, but for everyone still capable of wonder.Grice: That, my dear George, is the most childlike—and the most grown-up—conclusion we could reach.(They clink their glasses as the pub’s pianoman winks and plays a snippet of the Meistersinger overture, the laughter and music mingling in the London night.)

 

SECTION II: THE THEORY -- The two players in the dyad,  Grice calls A and B. When we refer to the player, we refer to that symbol in Grice’s Meaning in ‘A’. He is discussing types of meaning, and he decides that ‘A means to x’ – where A is a human agent, and x is an action will fall under the natural cases. In a conversation then we have A and B, two human agents. In ‘The theory of context.’ Grice is methodological about it. He needs to specify to his tutees that he will only accept as evidence the dyad. As in the old days of ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously’ marked under ‘*’ or “?” and written in brackets (1). For Grice, the type of instance will always be a dyad. Consider his first example of ‘implicature’ A: How is C getting on at his new job at the bank. B: Oh quite nicely really. He likes his colleagues and he he hasn’t been to prison yet. When in “Vacuous Names’ he goes on to use predicate calculus, we would need to be able to subscript the operators A and B. So suppose we are talking of a judging. We would have JUDGE_A  . If we have a WILL ascribed to B, we will have WILL_{B .}. Easy as it seems, it isn’t. An option would be to use ‘U’ for utterer and ‘A’ for addressee. Another option would be to refer to each as the ‘Meaners’ – or significans –  SIGNIFICANS_A and SIGNIFICANS_B  Note that in Grice’s analysis of meaning, including implicature, involving A and B, the logical form can be quite complex. The first intention by A – as he makes move M1 – within his turn T1 – is to have B BELIEVE or JUDGE something IABB. INTA BELB. But that is not the end of the matter. Grice was adamant about his approach being exhibitive. The judging that A intends from A is one concerning a psychological attitude by A. So A intends B to think that A either judges or wills that p. While it is free prose to write ‘judges or wills’ Grice took the disjunction seriously. He did allow for willing being definable in terms of judging. But the only explicit definition he gave – in ‘Method in philosophical psychology’ was the inverse: judging defined as willing. In this case, no reference to co-conversationalist B is necessary.  We are able to provide a definition of A JUDGES THAT P in terms of A WILLS THAT P provided we add some apparatus regarding the modulos, as Grice calls them. So if A judges that the flag is red and white, he wills that the flag being white and red will suppress a modulo where the flag is blue and white. England’s flag is red and white, Scotland’s flag is blue and white. We can thus define A’s JUDGING that England’s flag is red and white in terms of his willings. These are not willings about the flag being red and white, but about his willingness to have a match between his psychological attitudes and the state of the world. Within each turn, A is allowed to make as many moves as he likes. But given the common goal – common ground – of conversation, he is willing to exchange information and provide a way for the instditution of decisions. This is some sort of ‘actual’ uptake. As Collingwood would have it, conversation resolves conversando. And A expects B’s move. “Oh, he likes his colleagues and he hasn’t been to prison yet.”  A was trying to elicit that information from B and B is more than keen to provide it. Grice does not elaborate on how B gets to retrieve A’s meaning in questioning. Which is a shame, since Grice loved an interrogative. ‘How is C getting on in his new job at the bank?’ This requires a lot of common ground, and it’s a ‘how’ question. Grice uses the variable ‘wh-‘ – Cicero qu- -- but here it won’t work since ‘how’ does not start with ‘who. So it’s best to treat it as an x-question. As opposed to what Girce calls a yes/no, or yes/no/truth-value gap (when he was on Strawsonian antimode) question. ‘How is he getting on?’ The answer is ‘Quite well, I think.’ That should provide the full answer? Nor really, B feels as if he feels like volunteering. This is Oxford? Not really? Hugh Grant, an Oxonian, always treasured the fact that his brother worked at a bank, and that his parents were often asked. ‘Oh my sons are doing ok. One is a film star and the other works in a bank.’ ‘Oh marvellous! And what bank is that?!’ So you never know with Oxonians. The emphasis is on B’s volunteered information, which involves a topic that obsessed him even as an undergraduate, Greek ‘ou,’ Latin ‘non’. ‘He has NOT been to prison.’ Add ‘yet’ for effect. The implicature work smoothly. ‘Not’ implicates that B thinks A is having the affirmative version in mind. The ‘yet’ adds to the drama. Again, the cognitive abilities diverge in SIGNIFICANS making the signifying move, and the SIGNIFICANS getting his co-conversationalist’s meaning ACROSS. The first is a simple goal-end directed behaviour, as Bennett would call it. Of the type that Kant would call ‘prudential,’ rather than moral. There is no algorithm, because it’s actions that are under consideration.  But it is a bit like an Aristotelian practical syllogism – PRACTICAL being the key word --. Some are better conversationalists than other. And there are various levels to consider here. Was B’s GOAL to inform A that C is potentially dishonest, or that his colleagues are potentially treacherous. At this point, unfortunately, Grice could not care less. He is only bringing attention to the scenario to exemplify a case where what B EXPLICITLY CONVEYS or communicates, viz. that C hasn’t been to prison, DIFFERS FROM what B IMPLICITLY does – i. e. implicitly conveys or communicates. Grice adds two important features here.  What B IMPLICITLY CONVEYS is both calculable yet indeterminate. Consider calculability first: this is nothing but a slate of A’s processing in uptake: A must reconstruct B’s goal and proceed to calculate the steps B had in mind to achieve it. But now bring in INDETERMINACY, and you’ll see that the two-turn exchange may require further one. A: What do you mean he hasn’t been to prison yet? This is the type of pedantic exchange that is constantly annulled at Oxford and signifies that you are an outsider. ‘Do you mean to say that he is PRONE to dishonesty, or are you suggesting that his colleagues are potentially dishonest.’ Most likely, if B is Oxonian: “Take your pick.’ This type of conversational exchange Grice saw as the basis for HIS type of ordinary-language philosophy. And he provides such conversations in essays like ‘Vacuous Names’ – the long elaborations on Marmaduke Bloggs – or ‘Intention and Uncertainty’. ‘What do you mean you intend to retire if you are not legally allowed do do it? It’s not like raising ducks in old age, you know.’ And the important thing to notice is Grice’s reliance on his OWN intutions as to what’s best conversational practice or etiquette.  At most, he would call on them when refuting another Oxonian about them, as in his discussion with Hart on how to use ‘carefully’ carefully.  Grice was into sociological expectations of cooperation in other-oriented dyads. Add to that his emphasis on role and class. As tutee to Hardie, Grice’s role was submissive. As tutor to Strawson, Grice’s role was dominant. These lack of balance in conversational power is instituted at Oxford, so the players are very much UNLIKE cricketers – usually all undergraduates, -- Grice was also captain of the football team at Corpus. Tutorial exchanges are all the difference and they don’t even compare to that otiose, go-to-nowwhere chitchat in the common room! Grice treasured one where the conversational move to concsider was: “Well, he said that what we know we know, so he must know!”  THE CONVERSATIONAL MOVES. Those allowed are thus by virtue of their following what Grice calls the Principle of Conversational Helpfulness. These were the days when Grice was idenfitied as ‘the conversationalist’: who would tag every philosophism with ‘conversational’: conversational maxim, conversational principle, conversational implicature. The idea of a ‘move’ is Austinian. How to DO THINGS with words was the topic of his slogan. He preferred the more austere ‘Words and deeds’ – a man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds’ for his Oxford seminars on this. But Austin went to great lengths to analyse the ‘active’ side to ‘making a move’. Was it a phatic, was it a rheme? Was it a phone, was it a phone with suprasegmenetal stress added to it. Grice considers all this, and eventually comes to adopt the Austinian piece of parlance ‘speech act.’  Grice considers that Austin minismises the role of minimal speech acts. There are some speech acts which are, Grice calls them, CENTRAL, such as informing or directing. But there are speech acts, such as ‘suggest’ or ‘hint,’ which are peripheral – those that full under the implicature. He goes on to provide further symbolism. He uses the Frege complex sign of the turnstile without considering its double nature: acceptance and assertion. So he uses the turnstile. In opposition he uses “!” for the buletic operator. He adds in earlier debate the ‘optative mode.’ Oh, for Smith to be happy. Smith is happy, Smith, be happy, Oh, for Smith to be happy. In ‘Intention and uncertainty’ he explores Oh that there be light; oh for a breath of fresh air, oh for a lovely spring. In general, we settles for a trichotomy.  Moves are JUDICATIVE when they inolve the indicative or informative sub-modes. Or they are VOLITIVE, when they tend towards Kant’s sphere of imperatives, hypothetical or categorical – on which lectures when considering axiology. And third, there is the class of the INTERROGATIVES. They are a type of volitive. Grice goes on to consider the general format and the differential. Each move involves an M-intention on the part of the conversationalist A directed to co-conversationalist B, to the effect that B will acquire the JUDGEMENT that A WILLS something. And what A WILLS is that B JUDGES that A either WILLS or JUDGES that p. The rationale of conversation then proceeds along general lines. While talking of ‘conversational moves’ he makes a clear distinction with behaviour in general. His account will be useless if it cannot be seen as applying to dyadic interactions that do not require that type of expliciation. One of his earlier examples is his dropping the exact amount for the exact type of tobacco he buys on his tobacconists’s desk. Here a dyadic interaction takes place. Grice notes that DROPPING NOT the exact amount kills it all. There are other similar examples. A: Are you playing squash tonight. B displayes his bandaged leg. Hardly verbal or linguistic.  Yet, two-sided.  EXPLICITLY Grice is hesitant to allow that by displaying his bandaged leg, B means that his leg is bandaged. The type of ‘uptake’ required in THIS case is so automatic and primitive that defies reason. Everyone, or everything – a mouse, or rat, or a fly – can see that. He is more inclined to consider that the only thing that B MEANS or signifies is that he cannot play squash. I. e. Take ‘no’ as the answer. Grice never considered the apparatus of turn taking, which was elaborated elsewhere not by philosophers.  Notably Harvey Sacks. Sacks managed to get a copy of Grice’s full lectures, but as Schegloff confesses, he never read them.  And in a way, perhaps it was a good thing he never did. Those who did read them were stuck with them. They (especially the non-philosophers, since every philosopher who referred to them provided an informal rendition of the contents) were more willing to provide their own input to the thing, rather than even trying to provide a critical exegesis of it. Those scholars at Oxford who suffered Grice’s year-long seminars on ‘Conversation’ were another beast. Not everyone was invited. While the O. E. D. has 1967 as the first citation for ‘implicature’, Grice was using it in seminars dating from a couple years earlier than that. R. M. Hare, who credits Grice on conversational implicature in his essay in Mind sems to be suggesting that he is aware of what is going on. Hare was one of the few members of Austin’s (new) play group that made it to Grice’s own play group – Aune witnessed him almost on every occasion. ‘He never uttered a word. But blame it on his shyness.’ Hare would NOT need to attend Grice’s seminar on ‘Conversation.’ They were meant as optional for the ‘scholar’, which is the technical Oxnianism for ‘student.’ – Only the poor learn at Oxford. Attendance to a seminar is quite a world of difference with attendance to tutorials. Grice could be good at both. Indeed attending his own tutorials became the talk of St. John’s at one point, and Grice – Richardson reminisces – ‘we called ‘Godot’’ – as his tutees were piling up the stairs to his office.Attendance to a seminar was something that for those unfamiliar with the Oxonian ‘method’ – which traces back to Bologna and Sorbona, the two other oldER universities in Europe --. Attendance was never required. The scholar is FREE, and should LET his lecturer FREE. Don’t expect we’ll mark attendance, or grade. Grading is up to the Board of Examiners. With such loose requirements, Grice would not be surprised if only four scholars would attend his weekly seminar meetings on conversation, ‘if that much.’ In those seminars, Grice was adamant at throwing as much as he could in terms of what he called ‘expectations’ a conversationalist has towards his partner. He would make a few methodological remarks. If Chomsky was playing with ‘Colourless green ideas sleep furiously,’ and Carnap with ‘Ealy pirots karulise elastically,’ Grice knew that HIS thing was the DYAD: A: Where did that cat sit? B: On the mat. At his most prolific, Grice would need a radix to deal with all this. His example in Aspects of Reason at Stanford – repeated as Locke lectures at Oxford – is: √three little piggies went to market. In our scenario this becomes: √the cat sat on the mat When discussing Blake’s ‘Never seek to tell thy love,’ Grice finds the imperative oppressive, and requires his audience’s condescendence ‘if he would treat it as an indicative’: I sought to tell my love’. The past tense of ‘The cat sat on the mat’ may be similarly irritating. And Grice’s simplification goes √the cat is on the mat. Which is back to Toulmin’s drawing of the diagramme at Cambridge from Witters’s room, and transported to the Oxford environs by Anscombe. Hare was never that clear. Hare (who Grice does not care to mention on the TWO occasons – the first in ‘Aspects of Reason’ itself, and the second in ‘Retrospective Epilogue’ written the year before Grice died – when Grice refesr to ‘authors who would talk of phrastics and neustics’. For the radix is a bit in between. In the original Oxford Thesis formulation, Hare has a dictor and a dictum. This become in “Language and Morals’: the pair The door is closed, yes. The door is closed, please. By ‘please,’ Hare aptly refers to the Oxonian conversational scenario that allows you to UTTER an imperative. Grice would have none of that. He dismisses the blue-collar invention of the turnstile as a double Janus-like symbol, involving first ACCEPTANCE and then JUDGEMENT, and treats it as a unit├the cat is on the mat. To that, Grice simply opposes. ?The cat is on the mat. And if we are to credit a few philosophers: ├?The cat is on the mat. only when Grice is feeling ‘quessertive’ – Quessertive being the talk around Grice when discussing these topics with the self-appointed generative semanticists! The important thing is to be able to ex-troduce the mode operators as Grice calls them – and which he symbolises in toto as “*” and specifically as ‘asterisk sub psi’ *_ψ where the subscript is supposed to link each mode with some psychological attitude or other (fear, emotion, belief, desire, concuspiscence, akrasia, what have you). The resultant procedures, as Grice calls them – they are hardly basic, which Grice restricts to pure Kantian terminology only – become: ├√the cat is on the mat or !√the cat is on the mat (in vulgar English: put that cat on that mat!) or ?√the cat is on the mat. Note that  ?√the cat is on the mat represents only – ‘represent’ is the keyword – just ask Chomsky! – the boring yes/no question, since in such a conversational move as “Is the cat on the mat?” the utterer is already providing all the information that his co-conversationalist only needs to confirm or not. It’s quite a gap from Cook-Wilson’s sequences of sub-ordinated interogations, such as: A: I have a question for you. B: I’m ready – mind: I have a train to catch. A: I saw it yesterday on the mat – and the dean was starting to show signs of disattistaction. The cat’s the shaggiest creature at Hertford, and the hairs on the mat are not easy to vacuum of. B: So what’s the question? A: When was the last time when you saw WHAT on what shedding what? B: The cat sat on the mat, shedding hair, yes, if that’s what you are asking. Note that, in contrast with ‘Is the cat on the mat?’ – ‘Where did the cat sit?’ asks the co-conversationalist to fill a variable. To turn a variable of the form ‘The cat sat on X’ With the definite description ‘the mat’. As such, ‘The cat sat on X’ is neither true nor false. In fact, as Grice aptly observes, even the yes/no, or x-question involves a variable that turns the conversational move neither true nor false, not even in terms of volitive implicatures. A: Is the cat on the mat? B: Yes. By uttering ‘Is the cat on the mat’ – what does A (qua conversationalist) mean. Grice relies on transformational syntax here even if he wants to keep transformations to the minimum. What A means is that his co-conversationalist has to be able to supply an answer of the form of either ‘The cat is on the mat’ or ‘the cat is not on the mat.’ The first, abbreviated with ‘Yes;’ the second with ‘No.’ It is slightly different with Bosanquet’s query as to whether the King of Ruritania is wise! – which had been discussed by Bradley and others at Oxford to tears in the previous Oxford generation that predated Mabbott – vide Mabbott/Ryle, Symposium on Negation, The Aristotelian Society.So in A: Is the cat on the mat? B: I have a train to catch/My lips are sealed. A is not really committing himself, by definition to any proposition involving the radix √the cat is on the mat but merely suggesting that his co-conversationalist does so! The topics of radixes and stuff become existential to Grice late in his career when he defies the world to follow him in seeing his Conversational Imperative (“Try to make your conversational contribution one that fits the common goal of the exchange in which you are engaged” – out of wich a commandment, and not just a conversational commandment like ‘Thou shalt not provide false testimony’ is a mere corollary) as operative, in not the world over, at Oxford and environs. The conversational reason has its cunnings, and its manifestations in Town may not be its manifestations in Gown. In the Paul Carus second lecture then Grice plays with the horseshoe in items like !√the cat is on the mat Ↄ the cat is sleeping In conversational illustration A: Where is the cat? B: I know exactly where it is and what she is doing, but all I’ll say is that if she is NOT on the mat, she is well awake –and looking for a bone. Unlike regular cats, the Hartford cat detested sardines, and would rather bury a bone on the college campus anyday, to the defeat of the governing body, who were all to happy when the first measure of the new dean was to inform THE TIMES: “My cat is not a dog.” The type of radicalization – the use of √ in embedded clauses – was irritating philosophers like L. J. Cohen at New College, and would irritate the successor as philosophy don at St. John’s itself: P. M. S. Hacker. In his co-written extended essay on the topic: “Nonsense,” he criticises philosophers like Grice who should be slightly more respectful about the prison in which, if Witters is right, Oxonian English places you! There is more methodology behind that meets the eye.  And to deal with it we don’t need to proceed chronologically, since Grice drops bits which prove inspirational at different stages of his philosophical development. And usually those who have received less treatment in the philosophical literature prove the more interesting.  Just consider the ‘sat on.’ It was only in ‘Actions and Events’ that Grice approached the very topic. A. What has been the prisoner been doing all day? B. Oh, nothing, he just sat there. Grice considers that a type of action. The important bit for our reconstruction of what I keep calling his MINIMAL conversational pragmatics comes aftweards. He is discussing categories, and finds that while for Aristotle, ‘action’ (versus ‘passion’) was indeed a category – abused by grammarians who speak of the active voice – Grice’s example: Paris loved Helen – truth-conditionally equivalent to the passive – Helen was loved by Paris --, it is something different Grice is after. He is finding that while wh- words (where, when, why) answer to different categories in an ascription of an action such as ‘The Dean’s shaggy cat sat on the old mat,” there is no variable for ‘sat’ other than an ‘auxiliary’ which Grice detested: ‘do’ He was familiar with the insufficiencies of Greek and Latin in that respect too.  So Grice feels like coining the ‘whatting’. ‘Whatting’ – in a move reminiscent of C. J. Williams on the matter – is the general verb to represent any action, such as ‘sit on’. The conversational expansion would go: A Where did the cat sit? B. On the mat A And I expected she didn’t further somewhat. This is supposed to apply to our scenario Grice’s example concerning Socrates. GRICE. Today I’ll test you on the longitudinal history of philosophy. STRAWSON. Fair enough. GRICE: What whatted Socrates in 390 B. C.? STRAWSON. Drank the hemlock. Echoing a testing by a schoolteacher SCHOOLTEACHER. Rubicon Caesar SCHOOLBOY: crossed it. SCHOOLTEACHER. I knew he somewhatted in 45 A. D.! It resonates with the idea that communication is between rational agents, within a context. And Grice wished to restrict that context to the minum. The title of this seminar was indeed ‘The theory of context.’ Gardiner (who lived at Oxford, being single in the quarters of Magdalen) was saying a few things about ‘context of utterance,’ as was Firth and others, and Grice had to have his say on the matter. The MINIMAL CONTEXT – ‘if we are going to take ‘context’ out of context,’ he adds – is the dyad between rational agents. Both see each other as rational. The type of RATIONALITY is of the type Habermas will call ‘communicative’ – never ‘instrumental’. Means-end is involved, but in such a way that each conversationalist treats the other as a rational agent. Grice was familiar with Weber-type of other-oriented interactions, and by this time, a linguist had coined ‘idio-lect,’ which Grice liked. There is no need to rely on something like the System of Oxonian --. In an one-off interaction, if A supposes B is rational, there can be a conversation. Recall that in The Bible, to ‘converse’ is merely to have sexual intercourse! What are the types of ‘expectations’ that a conversationalist brings to the table – the board of the conversational game – to the game? Grice seems to have been clear from the start: BENEVOLENCE. This is a type of BENEVOLENCE that is not meant in the theological way the Reverend Butler used it when he opposed benevolence to self-love. This is CONVERSATIONAL benevolence. It is the PRINCIPLE of conversational BENEVOLENCE.  Grice thought that such a scheme was necessary since his earliest attempts at using the theory of conversation to dissolve some problems in the theory of perception – already present in that footnote in P. F. Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory – the thing was murky. There was an insistence on the STREGHT of the conversational move – in terms of informativeness? – but it was never clear why the conversationalist NEEDED to be informative in the first place! Grice is leaving all evolutionary justification for a latter stage, and he will when he provides more ‘folksy’ caeteris paribus laws within his theory of philosophical pychology. For now, this principle of conversational benevolence seems to be all he needs. Grice is aware that Oxonians can be selfish. So he balances the principle of conversational benevolence with ANOTHER principle, the principle of CONVERSATIONAL SELF-LOVE. It would not concern the cat on the mat, but something like: A: Where are the biscuits? B: In the cupboard. A cannot expect that B will BRING A the biscuits. There’s benevolence, but there’s self-love. So the interface of the balance is clear: one is benevolent to the point it does not obstruct the conversationalist’s need for his own space, his little self-love. Where does the earlier ‘strength’ or informativeness – already qualified as RATIONAL constraints or constraints of RATIONAL DISCOURSE fit in? In the desiderata. To these two grand reciprocal principles: the principle of conversational benevolence and the principle of conversational self-love, Grice then adjoins a desideratum or two. Interestingly, the two desiderata he mentions are similarly reciprocal in nature. There’s the obvious desideratum of CONVERSATIONAL clarity – the thing sounds pompous enough that Grice can spare the tutee of the ‘sic’ which he adds in his formulation: ‘be perspicuous [sic].’ He was well aware that Lewis was shouting loud that CLARITY is never enough! So the other desideratum is the Desideratum of Conversational Candour. The biscuits ARE in the cupboard, what more do you want? This desideratum enjoins that the move will be genuine, informative, and true. ‘True’ is of course restricted by Grice – or any other rational being – to conversational moves which are judicative in nature, never volitive. It is in odd form to utter at Oxford that ‘Close that window!’ is true!  Armed then with two desiderata and two principles, Grice thinks he has given his scholar some background for the expectations of co-operativeness operative in conversation. Grice was never too happy with ‘co-operation’ as a term; for one he disliked the umlaut. And also, he had these impulses, no doubt triggered by the nightmare of Austin, that Grice was deviating from ‘ordinary language’. What’s wrong with ‘help’? Does ‘helpfulness’ equate ‘cooperative’? In Italian it does: aiuta. There seems to be something reciprocal about ‘cooperation’ that is not so obvious in ‘help’ but for years, Grice kept referring to this as the Principle of Conversational Helpfulness, rather than the more Latinate ‘Cooperation.’ In Method in philosophical psychology, that came after, Grice explores an issue that has specific conversational overtones. And thus, rather than discussing it as the framework of the framework it seems more appropriate to include it within the framework itself. Grice is exploring the ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’ offshoots of his pirotological programme and arrives at what, again echoing Kant, he calls the IMMANUEL – which some have referred, as applied to conversation, as the CONVERSATIONAL IMMANUEL. Grice is not concerned at this point with the NATURE of the postulates in this manual for conduct. Only on its formal aspects. These rules for moral conduct – under which would fall conversational behaviour in this Kantian light, to be un-universalised by Hegel, each guideline is not just a maxim qua counsel of prudence. Grice has yet to examine the categorical imperative (which he does in the last Kant lecture and in the second Carus lecture) so this is seminal. He is considering such counsel of prudence such as a pirot may institute for himself as VALID only on the basis of (Grice’s term) its universability (and refers in passing to ‘well-known current discussions on the issue – by which he is having in mind all the attacks Hare is receiving from Rawls and the zillions of other critics. What does it mean that a guideline of conduct in the IMMANUEL and a fortiori, in the CONVERSATIONAL IMMANUEL is universalizable? Grice does not stop at this point. He provides THREE CRITERIA for such universalizable. He is considering the most general terms in a psycho-logical theory that will explain the conduct of pirots, and talking pirots in particular. The first feature of UNIVERSABILITY is forma. Each guideline of conduct needs to be formulated in terms of conceptual simplicity. His conversational maxims pass muster here – since as Matthew criticised Moses’s elaborate decalogue, what can be simplest than the Golden Rule. The second feature is functional. The maxims need to be interrelated. The third feature is APPLICABILITY, and this is the kernel one. Grice was giving a seminar on ‘Social justice’ at the point, moved by all the fuss they were making over Rawls’s passing reference to Grice on ‘fairness’ and co-personal identities. The maxims apply EQUALLY to every pirot. This is the equivalent of such ideal model he was proposing earlier in his seminars examining the expectations of cooperativeness conversationalists make on the basis that what “I do is what an honest chap does”. The guidelines are fair only if they apply fairly to both conversationalists in the dyad. No place for a master-slave dialectic here! If Plathgel is to succeed Ariskant he will proceed by a different route, and justify the cunning of conversational reason as it applies particularly to one specific Oxonian situation, say, where such FAIRNESS is not an option – consider an arbitrary Board of examineers decision to a tutee --.  In our formalistic terms of System PHP, the thing is clear to formalise IF JUDGE_BVOLIT_Ap VOLIT_Bp Consider the Austin’s biscuit conditional again. ‘p’ is know A’s volition that B supplies the missing information in ‘The biscuits are in x.’ B utters: “in the cupboard,” thus complying with A’s wish. B is being cooperative, helpful. He is abiding by the Principle of Conversational Helpfulness?  Does the mechanism get explained by the previous format of two desiderata and the principle of conversational benevolence plus the conversational self-love? It does. It would be the appeal to the PRINCIPLE of conversational BENEVOLENCE that does the trick. Self-love is minimal in this exchange. It only takes B’s the minimal energy of supplying the information. The desideratum of conversational candour, and the desideratum of conversational clarity are also respected by default. B is not making it ‘very difficult’ for A to catch what he means. Consider: A: What are we having for desert. B: I veto I – C – E – C – R – E – A – M. One parent says to the other in the presence of an infant who is unable to process the spelling. The principle of conversational BENEVOLENCE does the trick. And the flouting of the desideratum of conversational CLARITY triggers the extra implicature that that is that. For some reason Grice thought of ‘echoing Kant,’ and while Kant never spoke of ‘manner,’ in the seminars Grice refers to the category of MODUS rather. He had encouraged Strawson (who was a PPE and not a LitHum like himself) to study Kant’s categories in detail. Kant’s quartette in fact hides a twelve-fold list. Qualitas and Quantitas and Relatio and Modus were categories even for Cicero, who coined indeed Qualitas and the more ugly-sounding Quantitas. But behind the quartette Kant goes on to show how the monster rears his ugly head. There’s negation, privation, infinite, hypothesis, and the rest. For each of the four FORMS of categories there are THREE categories. The result is indeed the Table of Twelve Categories. Grice knew that he was making an informal use of Kant, so he couldn’t care less. If the echoing of Kant is not to be taken seriously, perhaps Grice would take the idea of a CONVERSATIONAL CATEGORY slightly more so. It is often said that twentieth-century philosophy saw a revolution: the linguistic turn, as Rorty called it. Or, in H. P. Grice’s case, a CONVERSATIONAL turn. The phrase ‘conversational category’ indeed occurs in ‘Logic and Conversation,’ but readers were not meant to take it seriously. The idea however IS serious. Grice elaborates on this the year before he died in ‘Retrospective Epilogue.’ As if repeating in pragmatic terms what Kantians lecture in mere moral term, Grice is wondering – given the panoply of procedures used in conversation: the open-ended, almost, set of rules for the open-ended, almost, nature of the conversational game, why are we, and need we, organize them?  Grice is a monist in one big respect. There is just ONE categorical imperative in ethics (“Do not multiply categorical imperatives beyond necessity”) and there is only ONE CONVERATIONAL IMPERATIVE (as he also calls it) in conversational pragmatics: this is the principle of conversational benevolence (not ill-will). Grice allows for models which regard conversational as a variety of behaviour “indeed rational” – but he allows within those models to cover only the rational aspects simpliciter – as Kasher does in ‘Conversational maxims and rationality’ – or as pertaining to a more specific sub-model that sees conversation as a variety of CO-OPERATIVE rational discourse – hence benevolence – since what is benevolence but lack of ill-will and furtherance of the shared conversational goal?  But within one single CONVERSATIONAL CATEGORY it seems obvious that some ordering is in order. He did not find the task easily. He looks back at his self when in 1967 he goes on to postulate truth at the level of ‘avoid ambiguity’. He does hint in ‘Logic and Conversation’ itself that some ‘maxims’ or categories seem more crucial than others: again, notably truth – a bite of truth is not a bite of a cheeseburger. What what more there is? In “Logic and Conversation” when he refers explicitly to the FOUR conversational categories – in Kantotle’s tradition: QUALITAS, QUANTITAS, RELATIO, MODUS – he knew what he was talking about. There is a specific intriguing phrase, “And one may need others.” Attached to the last of the maxims falling under the category of MODUS. Seeing that the maxims are nine, you add one and you get the CONVERSATIONAL DECALOGUE, as some have called it. Note that the arithmetic is not an easy one. Grice distinguishes between a maxim, a supermaxim and a submaxim. It is the submaxim that is the maxim simpliciter: things like ‘Avoid obscurity.’ Supermaxims are larger things like ‘Try to make your conversational move one that is true’ which embraces TWO conversational maxims proper: do not say what you believe to be true, and do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence. Similarly, under the CONVERSATIONAL category of QUANTITAS follow two maxims – which Kasher has identified as one addressing the maxi, and the other the mini.  In any case, the idea of CONVERSATIONAL category is important, and Grice’s tetrachomy is as good as any other. Indeed, some have attempted to find a rationale to the idea that there are FOUR and that there ONLY can be FOUR conversational categories. But when you read such rationales you find that they are built in an ad-hoc theory of communication especially designed to make the four conversational the four cornerstones of our conversational behaviour. Consider Grice’s play with things like ‘Be polite’ – or ‘maxims’ that guide our conversational behaviour which are ‘moral’ or ‘aesthetic’. The adjective ‘moral’ at this point offended Stalnaker, who will later go on the whole Kantian way. Is Grice implicating that the maxims such as those he dubs ‘conversational maxims’ are NOT moral? Surely they are not. They may RECEIVE a transcendental justification that removes the interest and motivation behind it, and brings in the duty. But such transcendental justification needs to be provided for – and his pointing to the common goal of mutually influencing and psi-transfer will still be deemed as merely ‘utilitarian’ rather than Kantian, in terms of moral theory. A further controversy regarding the idea of a CONVERSATIONAL category is that it simplifies the task for Grice’s theory of conversation. After all, the discussion had been in metaphysics – as Strawson was well aware – about the ONTOLOGICAL status of the category – as in Aristotle or Kant – and the mere LINGUISTIC (or as I prefer morpho-syntactic) side to it, as per most practitioners of ordinary-language philosophy of the type H. P. Grice is associated with. By talking of a CONVERSATIONAL category Grice is binging yet another dimension. There are ontological categories – qualitas, quantitas, relatio, modus – as it applies to res – ens realissma --. There are morpho-syntactical categories of the type that were being investigated by pomposusly called categorial grammarians, but in the Middle Ages merely known as MODISTAE.  And now Grice is bringing the idea of a CONVERSATIONAL CATEGORY. The directives for conversational behaviour, that stipulate if a move in the conversational game counts as appropriate fall under considerations which may well be deemed ‘categorial.’ Grice may well be thinking of his old desideratum of conversational clarity which has become a mere conversational supra-maxim, be perspicuous [sic] under which FOUR conversational maxims proper follow, or five, if we add the one that turns his bunch into the analogue of what Moses got from God at Mount Sinai. The etymology of ‘category’ – prae-dicamentum since Cicero onwards – need not concern Grice. The notion was adopted by Aristotle from ordinary language (ordinary Greek), from a directive to be proclaimed at the agora, to a claim (‘dicamentum’) put forward (‘prae’). Grice’s more general point is that conversation is enough of a distinguished acvitiy to be endowed with its sets of categories. And recall again that the best expansion of the acronym P. G. R. I. C. E. is that philosophical grounds of rationality: intentions, c is for CATEGORIES, and ends.  What was bothering though, was the way his legacy would look in the longitudinal unity of philosophy. Strawson had had the CHEEK to quote “Mr. H. P. Grice, from whom I have never ceased to learn since he was my tutor” about these ‘rules’ – of course they are not ‘rules’ – of rational discourse: strength, informativeness – how does Grice now manage to fix the mess and present an ORDERED scheme? If Strawson had just NOT followed Oxford etiquette by referring to Grice informally in a footnote – with regard to things like: A: Where are the biscuits?B: Some are in the cupboard. Strawson is arguing that for Grice to utter ‘some’ when ‘all’ does is a flout of strength. It is the type of inference that Grice will go on to expand in that infamous interlude in ‘The Causal Theory of Perception.’ To add injury to abuse, when Strawson felt he had the right to refer to his former tutor H. P. Grice in that infamous footnote in Introduction to Logical Theory, he never cared to be specific. This was point out to him ‘in a different context.’ I. e. at least he is respecting the difference in status. Grice always referred to logic and its practitioners as blue-collar. But Strawson does not specify WHICH context Grice was having originally in mind. It is a bit of a puzzle, since Strawson would hardly attend any seminar by Grice unless it’s the he was giving jointly with him.  Grice suggests that the context was the philosophy of perception. In that paper written the year before he died, Grice confesses that he saw the import of conversation as a rational activity best fit for survival – “not just a game!” – was in connection with matters of the philosophy of perception. To this we have to thank Anscombe. Anscombe (whom Grice hated) had brought Vitters to Oxford, and Grice refers to the ‘Wittgensteinians’ collectively (since Witters was gone) with reference to an ordinary-language philosophy manouvre: A: The pillar-box? B: Seems bright red to me. Why would B care to guard his conversational move: The pillar box seems a good bright red to me – why the ‘seems’ – why the ‘looks to me as if…’? These are typically guarded English – both Cantabrian and Oxonian – witness Miller’s parody of the Moore-Russell interactions in ‘Remembrance’ in Beyond the Fringe – unknown to blatant Vitters.  The Wittgensteians were challenging the ordinary-language philosophy account of sense data in terms of such roundabout locutions on the face that they sound utterly conversationally inappropriate.  So Grice’s defence had a direct route, which become a slogan: “Misleading, but true.” (Winch, of all people, loved the phrase, and would refer it to as ‘Grice’s point,’ i. e. as Grice’s importance in pointing out to us philospohers in the English community – Winch had moved to London by then and was doing redbrick – of the importance of the point.) Grice is explicit enough in ‘The Causal Theory of Perception.’ And his explicitness comes in with a bonus. He realizes that  A: Red pillar box? B: So it seems. would hardly be the epitome of the crucial philosophical disputes philosophers are supposed to be payed to resolve. So he adds a list of six other areas where THE EXACT SAME MANOEUVRE will apply. Some are dated, since they concern Grice’s temporary obsession with Malcolm and what this New-World philosopher was saying as self-appointed master of what Moore meant (when he said ‘knew’) – “Is Moore misuing ‘know’?” Some are deep ontological: What is actual is not possible? Stuff and nonsense! Only blameworthy actions are caused? – a reprieve to what the anglo-jewish couple of H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honore were suggesting in Causation in the law – and so on. Each requires its own conversational scenario and Grice provides it! To add to this six PHILOSOPHICAL CONUNDRUMS to be added to the ‘seeming red’ on the part of the pillar box, Grice includes FOUR NON-PHILOSOPHICAL examples in that infamous interlude. And it is only in connection with THESE four non-philosophical addenda that Grice cares to explore on how STRENGTH and INFORMATIVENESS should lead the way to the principle of conversational benevolence and, later, to the principle of conversational helpfulness (where ‘helpfulness’ covers the equilibrium between conversational benevolence and conversational self-love, simplyifing Grice’s account: do not multiply principles of conversational conduct beyond conversational necessity. It’s the last of the four conversational NON-PHILOSOPHICAL examples that concern us here to see the connection from the STRENGTH or informativeness – merely ONE of the FOUR conversational categories, in the Kantian jocular paradigm Grice adopts for the labelling of his sort of conversational game – his critique of conversational reason, cunning of conversational reason and all. The three first NON-PHILOSOPHICAL examples that predate the one at issue, and which Grice wants to compare, rather than contrast with the red-seeming pillar box are all stock examples, and may require a brief conversational expansion here. EXAMPLE 1 GRICE (at collections). Him? Co-Examiner. Yes, what’s your assessment? GRICE: He has beautiful handwriting. Grice is clear that ‘He has beautiful handwriting’ has to be the ONLY MOVE made – no guardedness, pre-sequel or warning.  EXAMPLE II A: And she lost her honest name! B: But she was poor A: And she was honest. Grice is providing a variation of a song his father had learned during the Great War (“’Tis the same the whole world over). In this case, ‘but’ carries a CONVENTIONAL implicature, not a conversational one. EXAMPLE III. Grice: I did not! Strawson: But they say you did stop beating your wife! Strawson was arguing that, in some uses of ‘imply,’ we may just as well say that, by uttering ‘The king of France ain’t bald,’ the uttering IMPLIES that France is, at the time of utterance, not a monarchy. Grice labels this ‘presupposition,’ and was doing thus with Strawson in their joint seminar on ‘Meaning, Categories, and Logical Form.’ At a later stage he would hold that it’s a mere conversational implicature that solves the problem of having to appeal to Strawson’s monstrous truth-value gaps. EXMPLE IV that matters to us in this context:A: A knows that B lives in a very small apartment with only two rooms and no adjoining hallways – these rooms being a bedroom and a kitchen. A comes out of the apartment. A: I cannot seem to be finding your wife. B: She is in the bedroom or in the kitchen. A: Can’t be. I just looked – twice! B: Perhaps you are having a reverse hallucination? It is with respect to B’s answer “My wife is in the kitchen or the bedroom” (Grice is loose enough to allow for syntactical variation here that could only irritate Chomsky). Grice wants to argue something that is so commonsense and commonplace that nobody would disagree with him. His typical manoeuvre (except your are a scholar looking for another scholarship and you NEED to argue ad mortem!). B’s implicature is that he doesn’t know! This is not the polemic about ‘or’ being inclusive or exclusive – which O. P. Wood had declared a matter of conversational implicature in his review of a logical textbook then popular at Oxford in the pages of Mind. This is a different epistemic implicature, to echo Gazdar and others. It involves our VOLIT and JUDGE then. In logical forms, the implicature behind B’s response amounts to  ~JUDGE_B(My wife is in the kitchen) & ~JUDGE_B(My wifei s in the bedroom) Rationale. It is when it comes to the RATIONALE that we should be concerned. Whatever B IMPLIED, if appropriately recognsied by his co-conversatioanlist, that is retrieved by the ASSUMPTION the co-conversationalist is making that B is abiding by a constraint of rational discourse. Grice is vague about the formulation. Never mind the imperative mode, which is otherwise rude at Oxford. A reasonable conversationalist is EXPECTED – or not expected not to – abide by the fact that his strongest conversational move under the circumstances is to be issued. Grice goes on to apply this to the bright-red shining red-pillar and notes a discrepancy. While, by the introduction of ‘v’ it is the case that p --- p v q It is NOT the case that the corresponding generalization applies to the bright-red shinging pillar box. In Grice’s words “Neither ‘The red pillar seems red to me” nor “The red pillar IS red” – entail each other!” So there is no way we can explain away this ‘assumption’ or expectation (rather) of maximal informativeness – falling under a more general assumption provided by the principle of conversational benevolence or the principle of conversational helpfulness – in mere terms of entailment. Grice does not go back to the issue. At the point he is satisfied by the fact that his addressee – in this case the audience that met at Cambridge for the symposium on The Causal Theory of Perception – will get a glimpse of what Grice is after. An amusing glimpse, to boot, to counterbalance this rather dry discussion of the even DRYER account of the Causal Theory that Grice drew directly from one of the most boring philosohers Oxford ever knew: Welsh Mr. Price! One occasion where Grice considers turn-taking is in his progression, in pirotese, from ‘not’ to ‘and.’ What is the point of ‘and’. His example is: “It is raining and it is pouring.” Without the ‘and’ B would be at odds if willing to challenge A: What do you mean ‘and’?’ Only with the occurrence of ‘and’ can B challenge the conjunction, and challenge A into disproving that it is not the case that p and q. p and q may be seen as moves. ‘It is raining.’ It is pouring.’ Has ‘and’ been internalized. Grice plays with this. And he would conclude that if A’s turn consists of ‘It is raining. It is poruing’, it is two moves within his turn. However, if he uses the para-tactical device and utters, ‘It is raining AND it is pouring’ it is just ONE move within his turn. Economy of rational effort! Moving implies that you are going somewhere. But Grice was aware that even at Oxford in what he calls ‘across the wall’ interactions – say, when exchanging tidbits with the gardener at Trinity – conversation may seem to be going nowehere. Starting a conversation seems easy enough, although as Leech recalls us: “Don’t talk about your indigestion. How are you is a greeting, not a question. It is more difficult with pre-sequences leading to closure. But Grice is expedient about that. If the goal of conversation is psi-transfer, as he sometimes puts it – once such transfer has been facilited through verbal exchange or other, each pirot can proceed to stay away form each other until next time! For every conversational move there is a corresponding UPTAKE, before the conversationalist is allowed to expect a conversational counterpart move. Grice knew that this uptake (which was postulated by Austin as necessary in conversational games involving betting – unless the invitation is ‘taken’ nobody can be said to have bet --. Grice saw that the m-intention of the conversationalist already contains the rudiments of what the possible reply will be. In fact, if you count the maxims you get nine. And in Presupposition and conversational implicature, he feels like adding one. He had lectured on Moses’s ten commandments, so he thought the addition of one little maxim to his conversational Immanuel made a lot of sense and turned it into a CONVERSATIONAL DECALOGUE. And this little maxim is all about the EXPECTED REPLY. ‘The king of France is not bald.’ CONFUSING if you are putting that forward on the basis of France not being a monarchy at the time of utterance. The uptake is incorporated into the M-intention.  Moves are only EXHIBITIVE, not protreptic – or rather, the philosopher ends his analysis at the EXHIBITIVE level because the PROTREPSIS cannot be algorithmically decided – or mechanistically calculated in a way that we are dealing with mechanistically replaceable finality. So, all that the conversationalist can hope is that his conversationalist partner will understand him! Unless you are, as Nowell-Smith would say, Donne, and derive pleasure out of the fact that you are thinking you are totally unintileggible in your well-formed sentences, when you are not! THE CONVERSATIONAL GOAL OF THE CONVERSATIONAL GAME. Only talk of goal introduces talk of REASON in the vocabulary. Grice was well aware of the intricacies this involved. He remained a Kantian, and thus would look for a transcendental justification of what he called the Conversational Immanuel. Common ground, common goal. Grice uses ‘common ground’ profusely, and even introduces an operator to mark it: the square bracket – in earlier lectures, a subscript notation. What is the common ground? Grice is hesitant about how serious he is being here. The ground does not really need to be common. More like NONCONTROVERSIAL he adds. So within the common-ground, which philsoophers working on Grice’s programme took seriously only when dealing with that concoction of the presupposition or non-existence thereof – we can drop the common goal of conversation. In this regard, Grice is an evolutionist. He draws his pirots from Carnap – ealy pirots karulise elatically. And he refers to the lingo pirots talk as PIROTESE. He doesn’t use the thorn rune, but the ‘o’ for obble – an obble is being COTCHED and POTCHED by the pirots. In fact, the order is reverse: you first POTCH (perceive) and THEN you cotch (CONCEIVE). What do you conceive? That thorn-1 is in F relation with thorn-2. The grapes are over the vine. And you communicate that. His evolutionary inclination is obvious in ‘Meaning revisited,’ where he proposes SIX stages of PIROTESE. The first stage is the irrational one, where the outburst of a piece of behaviour by one pirot is UNDERSTOOD by the co-pirot as, say, a sign of pain – the pirot has just groaned miserably. By conceiving a ladder here, Grice beings to add levels of intentional behaviour, goal-directed in kind, towards the other pirot. There are puzzles to be solved by the co-pirot. Why is the pirot SIMULATING pain, now, and why does the pirot want me to rely on my recognition of HIS intention to express pain? Eventually, Grice reaches STAGE 6, available only to rational pirots, where the link between the manifested behaviour and the pain is ‘artificial’ – ‘any link will do,’ Grice says.. Non-rational non-human animals may find it trickier, but not necessarily. Grice has two important points on this issue.  The first is the SYNTHETIC answer to the question about the non-human communication. It is not by fiat, that the philosopher decides that a non-human animal is not able to produce and detect m-intentions. It is just that they don’t. Their environments do not require it. The second important point is Grice’s constant reliance on the one-off scenario. A pirot may meet a pirot for the first time, in a jungle, and so there is no way to appeal to a procedure, basic or resultant, which the second pirot brings to the picture to process the behaviour of the first pirot. This type of one-off communication is common among non-human animals. By pointing to its centrality, Grice’s moral is obvious: conversation plays a role in what, to echo Vitters, is the HUMAN or PERSON form of life. Other forms of life are possible, and it is stupid to Androcles to ask the lion. He will not understand whatever answer the lion comes with! The point about PERSON brings us back to our ‘A’ under PLAYER. It is not ‘human agent’ simpliciter. It is PERSON. Grice spends some eschatological time here. He wants to diverge from Locke. Locke did play with ‘man’ – human’ and ‘person. For Grice what is at play is philosophically something only philosophers understand or need to understand – transubstantiation of the metaphysical type. A property which is only accidental for HUMAN pirots – rationality – understood as the ability to reason over the making and the interpreting of conversational moves – becomes ESSENTIAL in persons. In continental philosophy, what seems like demagoguery by Grice is common parlance!  LIBERUM is one concept in the alphatbetical index of concepts that follow this systematic treatment of Grice’s theory of conversation, which is critical and not just exegetical. Grice’s means-end analuysis is not Machiavellian. There is ALWAYS the possibility to refuse to attain your goal, or END, as Grice prefesr. Happiness is all about ends. But ends need not be followed. There is always in the pirot’s perspective the tantalizing question: “Why go on surviving?”. While a means-end rationality enures that the next move in the conversational game will be appropriate and according to the principle of conversational helpfulness, it need not be. The whole point of this realm of communication is that it is not Chomskyan. It is not at the sentence-level, which Grice took algorithmic (“An ill-formed sentence is not a sentence”). But an inappropriate conversational move is always a possibility. For one, a conversationalist is free to opt out. Grice’s slogan: “My lips are sealed.” But more generally, this echoes in the indeterminacy of any bit of information exchanged with a view to the institution of a decision. Each conversatiaonalist knows that the his companion in FREE in this sense, a full Hegelian sense – as when we see Hegel developing rather than refuting Kant’s regulative ideas on freedom. In this respect, the conversational game is not like critket, which Grice pacticed amaterusishly – i. e. gentlemanlike – to the point of obsession. The cricketer may leave the field, and that is that. But he cannot longer be said to be playing cricked. “My lips are sealed” still does count as a conversational move, however inappropriate. Or “When did you last see your Father?” “Last night, in dreams.” Grice saw a regressus here, most notably discussed in “Actions and Events.” Thus this mean that the means-end pattern is EMBEDDED within higher goals and higher ends and higher means? It does! THE OXONIAN CONTEXT: THE CUNNING OF CONVERSATIONAL REASON. Grice was aware of the rigid hierarchical structures in Oxonian professional conversations of the type he engaged in most: those of a full-time or whole-time tutorial fellow. ‘He has beautiful handwriting.’ However, the intricacies of the Oxonian milieu can very well be regarded as a cunning of conversational reason.  And his Kantotle becomes Heglato! When Elinor Ochs studied Malagasy speakers she thought she had discovered something. Being under sponsorship, she hastened to publish the result in a non-philosophical journal, and titled it the Universality of Implicature. Universality is a topic that rings a bell to Kantians like Grice or Hare, since we are into universalizability. Grice considers the universabilisability under three guises: content, equality and application. These apply to the procedures themselves. Only a procedure – basic or resultant – that is universalizable in this respect counts. This is not the type of universality that Ochs thought she was taking about. But to a philosopher the puzzle is solved by allowing that the Kantian alleged universabilisability of the conversational Immanuel may not be changed by a mere cunning of conversational reason. Oxford makes this clear in distinguishing between Town and Gown, or Gown and Town, strictly. In Gown, a conversation of the type. A: He has beautiful handwriting, although I am far from allowing yourself to retrieve from that causal remark the judgement that my tutee is hopeless at philosophy. In Town, ‘he has beautiful handwriging’ JUST means that he has beautiful handwriting. The same common goal is maintained, and the same principle of conversational helpfulness, and the same set of maxims. But a conversationalist in TOWN knows what to expect from his co-conversationalist, whereas a conversationalist in GOWN never does! There is another aspect to consider within the Oxonian context, and the index of concepts. Consider LIBERUM, or Grice on freedom. He always crtiicised Davidson for seeing men as automata. Searle was more realistic and he refused to extend his speech act theory to conver conversation, since conversation is the freest human agents get, and any constraint into the mechanics would be just anti-Griceian. In the TOWN/GOWN debate, this freedom is a manifestation of what I call the cunning of conversational reason. Conversational reason may deflect from its universability, but as in Pears’s scenarios of motivated IRRATIONALITY. When it comes to TOWN, Grice may place the money for his tobacco on his tobbaconists’s counter, and get no tobacco. The tobacconist just refuses to engage in conversation with Grice. Say, he heard something someone said that Grice did or say! IN GOWN, it is more complicated, and may lead you to expel, which is what Ockham, the lector interruptus, got. Or T,. C. Potts, who just couldn’t get on with Grice as a tutor and was lucky enough to ask for a change of tutor and remained at Oxford until his graduation. The tutee, even though in the dynamics of conversational power is below the tutor, can still exercise his ‘freedom of the will,’ to use Pears’s pretentious pompous phrase. To take Grice’s example. A: You are hereby ordered to bring me a paper on our next meeting next Tuesday at 10.’ Grice was called Godot at St. John’s, so Strawson knew that 10 could well be 11.  And Strawson could REFUSE to bring a paper or pring a copy of the Oxford Gazettte instead. ‘I did not mean a newspaper. I meant a piece of written work.’ Questions are supposed to be answered, and so on. Grice had the unfortunate luck of getting tutored by Hardie, and cherished, however, Hardie’s conversational move at the end of a long tutorial where Grice had exposed the immortality of Aristotle’s soul. ‘That proves, then, the immortality of the soul.’ Hardie’s only comment was: “Before you leave to come back next week with an epilogue to that, I have to ask: “What do you mean by ‘of’? And feel free to use that as your opening gambit in next week’s paper!’ It is utterly UNFAIR that H. P. Grice is associated with a co-operative view of conversation. It is true that he distinguishes two thesis behind his ‘avowed aim’ of seeing conversation as rational activity. The general thesis is the general one: conversation as rational, hence our playing with the puns of a faculty of CONVERSATIONAL REASON, complete with her cunning --. The specific thesis is conversation as RATIONAL CO-OPERATION (He does this the year before he died in the 1987 Retrospective Epilogue, and rather than dropped here and there in a causal way, he discusses it explicitly in the niche – Strand Six – which he creates JUST FOR THAT PURPOSE.  But it is unfair, as I say, because one of his examples was ‘War is war.’ And where can be more conflict than in diplomatic conversations where each conversationalist is stating that HIS war is the JUST one. Romans knew about this, and if they kept talking of ‘strategies’ – what a general does – they would know what they were doing. Art of war became a discipline by the time of Machiavelli – or Macchiavelli, as Grice more correctly spelt his surname. In a discussion of war strategies by Frontino in a collection that would be familiar to Grice as it fit a gentlmean’s pocket – the Loeb Classical Library edited by Heinemann – a discussion is carried over the fact  that a strategos – or Roman general – may MISLEAD his own troops into sure death. ‘Strategos’ has a deceiving ring to it: it applies to war, and it involves conflict – when it’s A’s war versus B’s war – or undercover as in the case of a ‘straegy’ a general may use against the welfare of his own troops.  Typically, the type of CONFLICT in CONVERSATION with which Grice is concerned is other. I shall refer to two conversational illustrations from different publications. In the earlier ‘Vacuous names’ Grice explores this infamous Marmaduke Bloggs, who has climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees, an amateur alpinist, as it happens, he being a Merseyside stock broker by profession. When The Merseyside Geographical Society organises a cocktail in his honour the conversation takes place. A. I love the way you so tidily get all things so prettily set for the cocktail. I am saddened, though, by the fact that someone won’t be attending. B. Who? A. Marmaduke Blogsg. B. But it is in his honour! A. That’s as it may be – but he doesn’t exist. He was invented by the journalists.  B. Well, someone won’t be attending the cocktail party then. A. Have you heard what I’ve just said: he doesn’t exist. B. I heard you quite distinctly. Are you under the impression that I am still committed to his existence by may Oxonian way of putting things in words? The polemic concerned that raised by Strawson with his idea of the ‘implication’ behind ‘The king of France ain’t bald’ as involving a TRUTH-value gap, seeing that ‘The king of France ain’t bald’ fails to be either true or false for Strawson, not Grice. This was a vintage polemic, and, since both men (the tutor and the former tutee) were engaged in it publicly in their joint seminar on ‘Meaning, categories, and logical form’ the thing was deep. There are interactions by Grice in that joint seminar where he is still unsure as to how to deal with this concoction by Strawson of the truth-value gap, and if there is ONE BIG TRIUMPH of Griceianism over Strawsonianism when it comes to conversational pragmatics is Grice’s delivery of the alleged ‘presupposition’ as a mere cancellable conversational implicature. The conflict between A and B in the preparations of the cocktail party for Marmaduke Bloggs takes explicit expression in the conflictive conversational moves by A and B – and Grice, as he will with the next example – leaves the CONFLICT unresolved.  Grice was a meaning-liberal (Bennett speaks of meaning-nominalism, but there is meaning-liberalism, to attenuate Flew’s meaning-anarchism that he attaches to Humpty-Dumpty). Grice is not willing to disqualify a conversationalist who uses ‘not’ differently (“It is not the case that someone will be coming to the party.”). He is just providing a MORE REASONABLE way to approach the topic. Strawson’s truth-value gap theory just depends on the appeal to this metaphysical concoction, which one can avoid by sticking with conversational reasoning. Strawson’s truth-value gap would be one such CUNNING of conversational reason at Oxford.  In fairness to Grice, it would be up to the conversationalist A who is using ‘not’ differently from conversationalist B to provide, within what Grice calls ‘a system’ – our system GHP a way to ‘introduce and eliminate’ negation or any other ‘logical device’ in ways that makes his conversational move a true one that abides with the desideratum of conversational candour and the desideratum of conversational clarity. “Marmaduke Bloggs won’t be attending the party” on the basis of the non-existence of Marmaduke Bloggs would thus be a true thing to say – if misleading. The desideratum of conversational candour clashes with the desideratum of conversational clarity. But any qualification to honour the desideratum of conversational clarity may not be in the offing when it comes to Oxonian conversations, -- at least within the Gown, if not the Town. The cunning of conversational reason is to suppose that conversational reason applies irrestrictvely to both! The second illustration comes from the lecture to the British Academy a few years later. Here again we have Grice’s concern for the LACK of REMEDIAL ACTION in conversation leading not to CO-OPERATION (as the slogan of most popularisers of Grice go) but to CONVERSATIONAL CONFLICT. And again, the topic is typically Griceian. It doesn’t really concern the conflict over alternate views to approach nuclear deterrence, say, but about how you use ‘intend’. A I am so happy you are intending to attend that concert on Thursday. Miss Foster-Jenkins provides one of the most memorable renditions of “Home, Sweet Home,” that I have ever suffered. B. Well, as the case may be, I may not be attending the concert after all. A. What do you mean. B. The Metropolitan Police, which covers Oxford you know, will be interrogatin me on Wednesday afternoon, so I may well in jail by the time of the concert on Thursday.  A. Excuse me! Then why were you talking about ‘intention’ in the first place? Grice’s point is again one about a philosophical concoction and its analysis – only if an analysis (reductive, if not reductionist) in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is provided (for “not” in the Marmaduke Bloggs, or for “intend” in the concert scenario – can the philosopher rely on a distinction between what is ENTAILED and what is IMPLICATED. A is stuck with an analysis of ‘intend’ which involves a clause involving a belief on the part of the intender that the intended action will be fulfilled by a degree of probability > 0.5. The conditions regarding the utterer’s knowledge that he will be interrotagated by the police, leading to a possible arrest that will keep him behind bars during Jenkin-Foster’s performance of ‘Home, Sweet Home’ at St. James’s Hall makes all the difference. As in the case with “Marmaduke Bloggs” Grice leaves the CONVERSATIONAL CONFLICT unresolved. Are the conversationalists still co-operating. In “Post-War Oxford Philosophy” he had approached the issue directly. Grice is liberal enough to be willing to engage in a piece of conceptual analysis with an occasional co-conversationalist philosopher, even if the conceptual analysis that is being developed is not ONE that Grice’s own ‘conceptual scheme’ will allow! In any case, if we allow the CONVERATIONAL IMMANUEL as a guideline for conversational practices, which, however imperative in form, results from statistical generalisations over what reasonable conversationalists in practice do, we can simply add the ‘caeteris paribus’: conversations will be co-operative, unless they won’t! THE CUNNING OF CONVERSATIONAL REASON is a good one. We cannot let Grice conclude his Oxonian contribution with a picture of conversation as displaying CONVERSATIONAL REASON when evey Oxonian historian of philosophy knows that there’s no reason without a cunning of it. One area that Grice explored in connection with the CUNNING OF CONVERSATIONAL reason has of course an Oxonian application. But its basis is broader. It concerns what Grice calls ‘akrasia.’ There is no easy way to translate the concept, but Grice does his best. In a framework where only the ACCEPTABLE conversational moves are made – “Make your conversational move such as is ACCEPTABLE and APPROPRIATE at the stage in which it occurs, by the accepted purpose of the conversation in which you are engaged. In symbols A ACCEPTABLE CONVERSATIONAL MOVE 1 B ACCEPTABLE CONVERSATIONAL MOVE 2 The whole logic depends on this. With the ‘akratic’ conversationalist, you have to be careful. Grice’s conversational examples in the area are rare. And had it not been for Davidson to be REJECTING the idea of ‘akrasia’ wholesale, he wouldn’t have bothered. Grice had given joint seminars in the philosophy of action with both THOMSON and PEARS, and knew the topic well. Suppose the conversation takes place between GRICE and THOMSON. GRICE. Bother for another Navy’s cut? THOMSON. You know, I should cut on those Navy cuts. GRICE. Just one. Smoking was THE habit for the don. In Grice’s case, the habit had been engulfed by one casual remark by his mother when visiting her son in his quarters at Oxford.  MOTHER. That cigarette makes you sophisticated. – look sophisticated, if you must. GRICE. Thank you mother. As Thomson’s health deteriorated, smoking and drinking – issues of akrasia pertain. The way Grice sees things are Kantian, or if you will Rossian-Urmsonian. Urmson was revisiting Prichard’s collection of essays previously edited by Ross on Duty and interest. The topic concerns OBLIGATION, be it moral or political, and how it cashes on DESIRE. In the case of the AKRATIC, no such cashing ever takes place.  For Grice, the akratic behaviour is then totally conceivably conceptually – as it was not for Davidson, who hailed from Puritanland! – it just involves a hierarchy of VOLs. A: Fancy for a cigarerette? B. No thanks. A. Come on! B. Alright! Just the last one! B’s reasoning can be frmalised in terms of VOLBVOLBstop-smoking The akratic deals with his volitions at this higher level. The pure motive may cash in desire, as will the impure motive. The framework is Kantian. In the ideal non-akratic scheme, there is no “not” operator occurring at any level of the endless chain (in principle) VOLAVOLAVOLA…VOLAp This is what makes a move manifesting such a volition ‘acceptable.’ It is acceptable and accepted by both conversationalists if deemed as a result of a volition that the conversationalist has deemed acceptable. When it comes to the Oxonian concept, we can play with Grice’s illustrations in ‘Logic and Conversation’ – all his examples are non-akratic. But for each illustration, an akratic version is possible. The akratic versions are especially frustrating if, as Grice claims the thing is, the COMMON GOAL of conversation is psi-transfer: mutually being influenced by one’s co-conversationalist towards the institution of a decision. But what if there is a change of mind? Grice deals with the topic, in the ‘uncertainty’ that akrasia – qua lack of strength of will – at one paradox in his analysis of action: GRICE: Please untie me. My head aches, and I want to scratch it. GUARD. Alright. GRICE. Thank you! (Remains unmoved) GUARD. I don’t see why you don’t go and scratch your head now. GRICE. I just changed my mind. Frustrating for the Guard, but not impossible, or inconsistent. In the akratic case, if a prolonged conversation is being held by A and B for the ‘institution of a decision,’ the common ground shared goal will suggest that the ACTION resulting from such a joint decision which has been established WILL be carried over. When it doesn’t, blame it on akrasia.  And Grice observed that in TOWN, if not GOWN, Oxford akrasia can be collective, too! He admired Hare’s efforts to the contrary, when spending all that energy which Hare could have devoted to conversational pragmatics when engaging instead in the Secreatary of Transport at Oxford, seeing that he found automobile driving at Oxford – just ‘crazy, if not akratic’! As we have stated in the introduction, it is hardly Grice’s point that conversational reason (or reason simpliciter) is only illuminated – or logically reconstructed – by the philosopher in terms of what Grice (after Hinktikka, who contributed to PGRICE) calls the ‘game-theoretical’ analogy. There is more to conversation than the game of conversation, and there is more to conversational reason than its subservience under the game framework. For Grice, ‘reason,’ and conversational reason as its offshoot – is a biological phenomenon. His brand of rationalism is naturalistic. And you won’t gladly say that ants are being rational in building their nest. Grice plays frequently with the pre-rational. The pre-rational does not feature large in Grice’s CONVERSATIONAL illustrations for obvious reasons. At the stage where Grice is discussing rationality in CONVERSATION he is feeling entitled to give some detriment to this pre-rational basis of rationality – but surely people who are NOT philsoophers have explored the area, notably those who are into SCHYZOPHRENIC TALK. It would seem that for Grice the communication and the conversation are connected. If for Aristotle man is the rational animal, Grice was never sure how to translate that ‘logikon.’ The Latinate ‘rationalis’ seemed to do for the most part. The very phrase ‘animal rationale’ indicates that there are other animals – notable tigers (Grice: “Tigers tigerise”) – which are not. The distinction rationalis/non-rationalis is at the root of Grice’s natural/non-natural distinction. Smoke ‘means’ fire, but fire is not ‘animate’ and ‘means’ needs to be cited in ‘scare quotes.’ Grice is willing to allow the non-rational animal – say the bonobo – with some ability to ‘mean’ this or that by the movemets someone or ‘some thing’ does.  He still claims that, as de facto, no non Homo sapiens sapiens displays the richness of the intricacies of conversational moves and thus disqualifies non-human animals as depositary of the ‘m-intention.’ Never in his career in philosophical circles was he ever questioned about that – except when folks OTHER than philosophers – such as that bunch gathered at Brighton – would expect the philosopher to expand on his naturalistic framework, and he indeed does by providing a SEVEN-STAGE ‘EVOLUTION’ of a ‘signal’ originally NATURAL to a ‘rational’ move in the conversational game. The game is one of survival, and some do not see much ‘ludistic’ about it. Communication, and conversastion are deep down matters or means by which pirots (living organisms at different stages of evolution and in their own different ‘forms of life’) display signals that accommodate their needs for survival. When delivering his ‘Causal Theory of Perception’ he did not feel the need or pressure to emphasize the ‘rational’ side of the ‘rule’ or principle he was promoting – of making one’s contribution the strongest possible under the circumstances. At a later stage, in the ‘Prolegomena to Logic and Conversation,’ when witnessing that the ritualised model of conversation was being inherited by some American practioners passing for British (Grice’s reference to ‘British Analytical Philosophy, the volume edited by these two British philosphers, and published by Methuen) he feels more so.  On that Friday, before engaging his audience with “Logic and Conversation” he had warned the audience what he would do the next one.   He had warned his philosophical to which a methodological manoevure had been offered that inappropriateness – and thus appropriateness simpliciter -- connected with the nonfulfillment (or fulfilment simpliciter) of such speaker-relative or utterer-relative, indeed addressee-oriented, utterer-relative -- conditions are “best explained,” Grice’s idiom, by reference to certain general principles of discourse or rational behaviour.” Note the disjunction: ‘a certain principle of discourse” or a CERTAIN PRINCIPLE OF RATIONAL BEHAVIOUR – the implicature: that ‘discourse’ proper is a sub-class of rational bheaviour. This was way before his John Locke lectures on reason and it clearly states what his very motivation behind those lectures was.  For Grice, the problems were created by himself. If he was appealing to ‘rational behaviour,’ or worse to ‘a principle of rational behaviour,’ it seems only logical – and I’m sharing a philosopher’s frame of mind as I share it – that you’ll dedicate a full set of lectures if you can to that precise trickies of phrases, ‘rational’ + ‘behaviour.’ It is Gice’s view at the end of that lecture on that Friday, that most of the A-philosophical theses which he had been considering – including his on in ‘The Causal Theory of Perception,’ which he now lists -- are best countered by an appeal to such general principles; -- or principle – a principle of rational behaviour.  Note that the principle – indeed IMPERATIVE, as the latest Grice vintage will have it – is APPEALED. In ‘Logic and conversation’ he notes that such appeals are caeteris paribus: Conversational illusdtration: A: Where are the Franks hiding? B: My lips are sealed.   A: Waar houden de Franks zich schuil? B: Mijn lippen zijn verzegeld.  Idiomatic Usage and Variants The phrase in B’s conversational move above  "Mijn lippen zijn verzegeld"  is an idiomatic translation of Grice’s way of putting it in ‘Logic and Conversation’ as the extreme case of opting out of the imperative of conversational benevolence – his principle of  CONVERSATIONAL RATIONAL BEHAVIOUR.  "My lips are sealed" and is widely understood in Dutch.  However, Dutch speakers may often prefer more colourful or traditional variants:  A:  A: Waar houden de Franks zich schuil? B: Ik zal zwijgen als het graf (I will be as silent as the grave):  A very common and strong way to promise secrecy.  A: Waar houden de Franks zich schuil? B: Mijn mond is een kluis  (My mouth is a safe/vault):  Used to indicate that a secret is securely stored. A:  A: Waar houden de Franks zich schuil? B: Ik zeg niks  (I’m saying nothing):  A more direct, everyday way to express a refusal to speak. A:  A: Waar houden de Franks zich schuil? B: Daarover houd ik mijn kaken op elkaar  (I’ll keep my jaws together on that):  Implies a firm refusal to let information slip.  Oxford Philosophers and the Kantian Rigorist  In the famous "murderer at the door" scenario, Kant – throwing all of Western civilization out of the window, as Grice puts it -- argues for a rigorist adherence to his – Kant’s, not Grice’s -- categorical Imperative, claiming that one has a perfect duty never to lie, even if it leads to the death of an innocent person.  Oxford philosophers, most notably Hare, address this by shifting the focus from rigid rules to Universal Prescriptivism.  Hare argues that  Universalizability does not require ignoring the specific, critical details of a situation. A RATIONAL (or even REASONABLE) agent can prescribe a universal rule that allows for "deception to save a life" because any rational (or reasonable) person in that same life-or-death situation would want that exception to exist. By treating moral language as prescriptive, Hare allows for a "two-level" utilitarian approach where we follow general intuitive rules -- like  A: Where are the Franks hiding? Don't lie! B: My lips are sealed. but can override them with critical thinking in extreme cases to maintain a coherent moral system.  Weakened Versions: "In my dreams" The English phrase  PARLAMENTARIAN: When did you last see your father? BOY: Last night, in my dreams" refers to the famous painting by  Yeames. The painting depicts a young boy being interrogated by Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. This is a classic example of mental reservation or "weakened" compliance.The boy provides a technically truthful answer ("Last night, in my dreams") that ‘misleads’ the interrogators without technically "telling a lie". This strategy attempts to preserve the trust required by Kant’s Categorical Imperative while protecting the loved one, effectively "gaming" the rigorist system by using truth to produce a false impression. Grice would often display some interest in exploring more Dutch idioms – occupied by the Germans when Grice was fighting the Hun on the North-Atlantic threatre in the Royal Navy -- regarding secrecy, and a deeper dive into Hare’s critique of Kantian ethics. After this point about the ‘appropriateness’ of a pice of behaviour as complying or countered by an appeal to this “principle of rational behaviour,” Grice still goes on to say in this concluding remark to the mainly methodological “Prolegomena to Logic and Conversation” (which never held such pompous title when distributed, against Grice’s will – in mimeograph form by all those non-philsoophers who would freely quote from it and build their theories – non-philsoophical, for sure – upon it -- has not been so far Grice’s objective to establish that contention.  It is then that Grice announced that he will, however, “now turn to a direct consideration of such a general principle of rational behaviour, “ next week he means – with a focus, not on ethics, but on the less pressing focus on such a principle’s capacity for generating implications and suggestions rather than on their utility for explaining the specimens of inappropriateness which have interested A-philosophers. Such a caveat does not quite apply: his considerations on ‘a’ for example as in A: Smith is meeting a woman this evening. B: His wife. appeal to considerations of how ridiculous a philosopher like L. J. Cohen is when he claims that ‘a’ has THREE senses! “It will be my hope that their utility for this last [methodological] purpose,” a meta-exegetical purpose if ever there was that will have G. N. Leech claiming that Grice’s conversational pragmatics is mere conversational rhetoric of the type have been engaged since Cicero! -- might emerge as a by-product of the principle of rational behavoiur’s still PHILOSOPHICAL – not ‘sociological’ as in Hacks, or psycho-linguistic as in Chomsky -- utility in other directions” notably an integrated theory of conversation, within a broader theory of signification and communication that philosophers at Bologna were already starting to call ‘semiotic.’ “From now on,” Grice declares, “my primary interest will lie in the generation of an outline of a philosophical theory of language; so A-philosophers may be expected to reappear on the philosophical stage only intermittently.” Indeed, philosophical theory of CONVERSATION seems more appropriate – since it does not touch on the structure of ‘language’ at all. If Gardiner was hiding at Oxford and produced his theory of speech and language that by far supersedes de Saussure’s Cours, Grice still feels like he NEEDS to appeal to the SYSTEM of ‘language,’ where a casual appeal to something as frivolous as what the Italians have a ‘converazione,’ full, in the words of Gray, ‘of what I cannot tell’ – would diminish the attention span of his self-appointed philosophical audience. It is true that while at Oxford Grice’s seminars on conversation were only allowed to be attended by those engaged in the professional study of philosophy, the Harvard lectures were instituted by both the Department of Philosophy and the Department of Psychology – and rotated bi-annually. Indeed, the ones preceding Grice’s, were on the neuro-physiology of the retina, not on anything as vaporous as a ‘philosophical theory of language,’ whatever that was supposed to mean. Well, into the second lecture, the use of the epithet ‘rational’ – now paired with ‘reasonable’ appropriately re-appear. First in Grice’s declaration of his avowed aim of seeing conversation as a goal-directed, indeed rational, activity. No such consideration about game there, which is my point about Grice’s conception of reason – and a fortiori conversational reason – being ‘grounded’ – to use the acronym PGRICE – on intentions, categories, and ends – and not on ‘game’. Such avowed aim gets some expansion in the three steps towards an answer to the ‘fundamental question’, where Grice confesses to be ‘enough of a RATIONALIST’ – indeed, as he has it in ‘Prejudices and predilections, which become the life and opinions of H. P. Grice,” a ‘conservative, irreverent, dissenting rationalist” – the strict order being: irreverent, dissenting, conversative rationalist.” Note that the ‘transcdental justification Grice offers concerns the alternate ‘rational/reasonable’ pair – it is a justification characterised by philosophers such as Holdcroft at Leeds or Bird in Scotland as ‘weak’: it does not purport to provide a justification for the EXISTENCE of the ‘contribution’ as a resultant of such a ‘principle of rational behavour’ but the existence of an ACCEPTABLE or ACCEPTED contribution. There are other references to ‘reasonable’ in the coming lectures, mainly as ‘reason’ is used colloqailly in the interpretation of behaviour, as opposed to ‘motive.’ This had been a preoccupation of Grice’s since his 1948 ‘Meaning’ when he is clear that he can’t be satisfied with a behaviouristic theory alla Stevenson or Ryle that sticks with ‘motives’ for contributions to conversation, but must look for the reason.  The intention behind it, and even the m-intention behind it, must be ‘reasonable’ in that it must have, from the intender’s perspective, some chance of getting realised. The ‘reasonable’ tag allows Grice to fight some alleged counterexamples to cases of conversation or communicative exchanges, where such ‘reasonableness’ is just not there – and let us recall that a claim to reasonableness was one being invoked by Urmson at Oxofrd when dealing with pre-conditions – or transcendental requireents – of successful communication. While Grice plays with ‘rationality,’ reason, and thus ‘conversational ‘reason’ in “Method in philosophical psychology,” he does not provide a ‘genitorial justification’ for it, but just suggests it, as being notably non-game-theoretical, but aimed at crude survival, and thus adaptive in nature. In the four lectures on ‘Aspects of Reason’ that he delivered at Oxford, the expected provision of sufficient and necessary conditions is still lacking, as he conceded in “Prejudices and predilections, which become, the life and opinions of H. P. Grice”. He adds that he hopes that in the ‘not so distant future’ such a deficiency will be corrected. And more importantly, he provides the way in which such a correction will go. This is interesting, as a matter of course, because he published those remarks – with the suggested correction to the sufficiency – way before the Lectures were ever published (posthumously, in 2001). Philosophers working in that area were invivted to take that casual remark more seriously than they should otherwise would. The correction invokes a claim to CAUSALITY. REASONER R reasons from P to Q iff REASONER ADC P REASONER ADC Q REASONER INTENDS REASONER’S JUD Q TO BE CAUSED BY REASONER’S JUD P. (He had played with an analogous causal account of such notions as ‘knowleddge’ in ‘Further notes on logic and conversation: “The schoolboy knows that the Battle of Waterloo was fought in 1811 if the battle of Waterloo causes the schoolboy’s belief” – and intention in “Intention and Uncertainty”: GRICE scratches his head iff GRICE wills to scratch his head, believes that his willing will CAUSE his scratching – final paragraph, conclusive enough for the lecture. The first ‘Aspects of reason’ lecture explores the rational/reasonable pair to which he had appealed in ‘Logic and Conversation.’ The remaining lectures attack his M. O. R. – or modified occam’s razor. There are not various SENSES of the modals. The ‘rationality’ operator is CONSTANT in sense along the alethic and practical divide as he calls it. This is particularly important for Grice the Kantotelian. For Aristotle would never have two critiques: one for pure reason, and one for practical reason (forget the critique of judgement). There is something in Aristotle’s syllogismos (Cicero’s ragionamento) that is ‘aequi-vocal.’  Grice is appealing here to a barbarism by Boethius Annici – in translating terms with which Grice and Austin would be familiar: the synonym, the homonym, the paronym. The aequi-vocal is taken, as it was by Boethius, seriously be Grice. It is this appeal to the aequalitas – or identity, in fact – of the modal of rationality. For Grice, that modal remained the ‘must.’ For Hamsphire (in Thought and Action) it had been the ‘should’ (Hamsphire’s canons of rationality weaker than Grice’s). For Hare, it had been the OUGHT TO – Hare’s canons being the strongest. After playing with what Grice regarded as a simplified use by Davidson of crucial issues like CREIDIBILITY and DESIRABILITY he ends up offering a unfified picture of long sequences of moves which are not necessarily meant as conversational – and which again stress the point that for Grice the ‘game analogy’ is methodological, rather than substantive as it is for Hintikka (you take the game out of Hintikka or Williamson, and they rather hide than seek). Grice is clear about this in a passing remark that echoes that lecture in the James series that is seldom referred to ‘Models of implicature.’ It takes up issues with which Grice had been involved in dealing with degrees of assertability conditions. The thinker, the meaner, and the utterer. In his progression to ‘modes’, he notes that he will usually get rid of the ‘differential’ involving the utterer’s addressee, since the steps in reasoning in which he is interested concerns the individual UTTERER, and not necessarily the UTTERER as diverted by the randomness of a conversational scenario that totally depends on the ‘rapport’ he creates with his conversational partner. Grice gives a personal anecdote about that. When working with Strawson, his rapport became so strong that, as he puts it, their conversational exchanges were often cryptic enough to a third party – by which Grice means Strawson’s wife. CONVERSATIONAL ILLUSTRATION GRICE: eleven then? STRAWSON: eleven yes. With Strawson’s wife witnessing. This meant that Grice would telephone Strawson at eleven for further conversational dialogue along the telephone lines – none of which Mrs. Strawson was ready to allow – and Grice getting a call from Mrs. Strawson to stop calling his husband ‘at such late hours, and for nothing!’ The Aspects of Reason series end with a preface to happiness. And I don’t mean ‘conversational happiness’ even if conversation surely was for Grice one of the main sources of it. What Grice means is the apodosis in a counsel of prudence by Kant – on whom he relies not so much as per Kritik der Praktische Vernunft, but as per Metaphysik der Sitten. The custom, or sitte, is best represented in a counsel of prudence, with the apodosis, ‘if you want to be happy.’Grice struggles with his, as he provides the universalizability that would satisfy Hare. And the volume, as per its posthumous edition, was completed indeed with the publication which Grice saw as outside his explorations on reason, but more generally as his exploration on what he saw perhaps as a more basic idea, that of ‘need’ or ‘want’ or ‘end’ and how it relates to that ‘eudaemonia’ that Kant slightly out of the blue and for mere reverence to Aristotle – that big eudaemonist if ever there was one – brings into the picture. ,, When it comes to his philosophical background and tradition, understanding the narrative and arguments within this text requires a careful appreciation of Grice’s philosophical background and intellectual context. Grice’s personal history, education, and professional environment deeply inform his approach to philosophy, especially in the areas of meaning, conversation, and rationality. The opening section of the text situates Grice within the Oxonian tradition, but also highlights his engagement with broader philosophical currents from Paris (Sorbonne) and Bologna, underscoring the importance of cross-traditional influences in his work. To fully grasp the narrative, readers are encouraged to explore Grice’s background, including formative experiences at Oxford, his connections with influential philosophers, and his participation in the larger European philosophical dialogue. The philosophical context is enriched by references to numerous thinkers, both contemporaries and predecessors, whose work intersects with Grice’s. Notably, the text draws attention to the web of intellectual connections established and curated by scholars such as J. L. Speranza, whose expertise in name-indexing and bibliographical research provides essential guidance for navigating the landscape of analytic philosophy. Grice’s interactions with figures like Austin and Ryle are highlighted, but the narrative also points to his dialogues with continental and classical philosophers, such as Kant, Aristotle, and Cicero. These references are not merely decorative; they frame Grice’s arguments and illustrate the continuity of philosophical inquiry across generations and traditions. The reader is advised to consult the bibliographical references and the name index found in the appendices, as these tools offer valuable context and facilitate a deeper understanding of the philosophical debates and personalities mentioned throughout the text. A central theme in the summary is Grice’s role in maintaining and advancing the traditions of Oxford, Sorbonne, and Bologna. While some critics may perceive Grice’s work as parochial or overly reliant on Austin’s methodology, the text argues that Grice’s intellectual scope is far broader. He consciously counters the parochialism associated with Austin and Ryle, advocating for an ecumenical approach that values dialogue between different philosophical schools. Grice’s work reflects a commitment to the rigorous standards of the Oxonian tradition, but he also draws upon the analytical methods of the Sorbonne and the dialectical heritage of Bologna. This synthesis demonstrates Grice’s respect for tradition while simultaneously challenging its limitations, positioning him as a philosopher whose legacy bridges multiple intellectual worlds. Grice’s ecumenical interests are further distinguished by his blend of analytical rigor, English common sense, and understated humor. Unlike Austin and Ryle, who are often characterized by their strict adherence to ordinary language analysis and Oxonian exclusivity, Grice integrates a broader perspective that allows for creative engagement with philosophical problems. His method combines precision and clarity with a genial wit, making his arguments accessible yet deeply insightful. This balance of seriousness and playfulness is a hallmark of Grice’s philosophical style, enabling him to address complex issues without resorting to unnecessary jargon or obfuscation. It also marks his work as distinctly English in tone, but cosmopolitan in substance. The summary strongly recommends that readers consult the bibliographical references and name index in the appendices. These resources are not ancillary but integral to understanding the full scope of Grice’s intellectual milieu. They provide guidance on the philosophers, texts, and debates referenced in the main narrative, and they help situate Grice’s contributions within the larger history of philosophy. The appendices facilitate connections between Grice’s work and the ideas of his interlocutors, making it possible to trace the development of key concepts and arguments. In conclusion, the first part of the text presents Grice as a philosopher whose legacy transcends the boundaries of Oxford, Paris, and Bologna. His work is characterized by a commitment to analytic rigor, openness to ecumenical dialogue, and a distinctive English sensibility that tempers seriousness with humor. Grice’s engagement with various philosophical traditions and his critique of parochialism set him apart from figures like Austin and Ryle, establishing him as a central figure in twentieth-century philosophy. For students and scholars, a careful study of Grice’s background, influences, and references is essential to appreciating the narrative and understanding the broader intellectual legacy he has left behind. Lexemes from English, French, and Italian. If there is one conversation that features large in our application of the FRAMWORK is the engagedment between Grice and his tuttee, Strawson, on presupposition. Strawson had left doubts about his self-importance than Grice did, and his ‘On referring’ had become (to be regarded as) a classic in analytic philosophy of the type Grice and Austin were engaging. Strawson had contributed in press to the debate with early pieces on ‘Truth’ for Analysis, and using ‘performatory’ before Austin did. In the official version of ‘On referring’ the topic is conversational at the meta-theoretical level: (Dummett’s adaptation). A You still haven’t displayed to me whether Queen Elizabeth wore a wig. B. And I won’t. There’s no way I can – the past is a foreign country. Dummett always considered Strawson’s response to Russell’s On denoting rechereche and well worth the angry response by Russell (“Mr. Strawson on referring” on the same pages where Strawson had added insult to injury). In a scenario where Queen Elizabeth I does not exist, to wonder if she wears a wig seems otiose. If we add, “Queen Elizabeth I did not wear a wig” we do add insult to injury. There is an ‘implication,’ Strawson thought. The utterer is IMPLYING that there is a present Queen of England. He later rephrased such talk of ‘impying’ into a talk of ‘presupossing.’ Kneale and his wife were lecturing Oxford on the growth of logic and Strawson found that ‘suppositio’ was a word that, Collingwood notwirthstanding, could do a second round, and leave implication to Philonius. When Grice submitted on the year before his death the material to Harvard University Press, he managed to include the MAIN sequel to ‘Logic and Conversation.’ In principle Harvard University – the president and Fellows, that is – are committed only to the text of the WILLIAM JAMES MEMORIAL LECTURES, bi-annual as they were at the time of Grice’s deliverance – and held bi-departmanntally – the previous year it had been a psychologist lecturing on retina.  When the material went to press, under Part II, Semantics and Metaphysics, Grice managed to include an excursus on the Logic and Conversation, with which he had been working all his life since he met Strawson. At Urbana and other places, talk of ‘presupposition’ and ‘conversational implicature’ was becoming common, and so Grice entitled the talk for publicaction as ‘Presupposition AND conversational implicature’ meaning ‘Presupposition AS conversational implicature.’ The examples he provides all allow for conversational illustrations. At one point, before calling the game off, the conversational game off, as it were, Grice expresses dissatisfaction with his former self, and his sticking with well-worn examples like baldness of the king of France and whether we should stop beating our wives. But the illustrations he offers to replace them are ultra-linguistic botanising, beyond his own patience. DEREK GRICE. Father died. GRICE. When did that happen? DEREK. Just yesterday night. Mother sent me a telegramme. I regret Father’s death. GRICE. I don’t. DEREK. I don’t get your point. Grice’s point was that ‘I regret Father’s death’ may well entail that Father indeed did die. It is not the case that I regret Father’s case does not. This is not a presupposition which depends on the a truth value gap (‘The event of Father’s death did take place’). Grice is pointing to the fact that it is not clear to him whether the embedding of clauses involving factives inherit their alleged presuppositional counterparts, especially when there is no such a thing as a presupposition. Continuation. DERECK. I was confused yesterday. You said it was not clear to you that you regretted Father’s death. GRICE. After some introspection, I believe you are right. I should have guarded my judgement, and I guard it now: I DON’T THINK I REGRET FATHER’S DEATH. Grice thought that a person never dies – that’s why! A different specifically Griciean keyword – such as ‘squirrel’ – that will reveal a piece of philosophising as Griceian in spirit, is deutero-Esperanto (since who else would use it if not Grice?). It seems convenint to elaborate on the issue in this second, less central part II (‘The conversations’) rather than Part I dedicated to the Framework itself, since it does not involve an ESSENTIAL part of the framework but one that Grice encountered when fighting with adversaries that were claiming such a role in the programme. It appeared at various stages in his career. The earlier is not deuteron-Esperanto itself, but more in the vein of the semiotic Grice that he always was (semiotike – old mediaeval name for ‘the science of signs’) a ‘new High-Way Code that Grice invents while lying in the tub. Grice was aware – since his days with Hardie, who drove (Grice was boarded at Corpus and did not have to) – how UNBEARINGLY complex the High-Way Code is, so the implicature is the obvious one of requiring a Hare-type simplification (a bit like Ogden’s Basic English, with which Grice was familiar enough – he treasured Ogden’s MM, as he abbreviated the title of “The meaning of meaning, being a study in the science of symbolism.” Why does Grice introduce himself as inventing a new high-way code. This was delivered at Oxford, when indeed under the tutelage of Quine, Lewis was adopting co-ordination problems and offering ‘convention’ as a solution. Grice would have none of that. It is not surprising that the next stage where something like this new High-Way Code makes it to the Griceian scene is at another public event. Grice had been invited by a well-known grammarian, N. V. Smith, who published the proceedings, to lecture the crowd at Brighton, were Smith had tenure – and surprised Smith was when Grice began unpacking what he called the mystery package. ‘Convention,’ Grice repeated, has NOTHING to do with ‘meaning’ and this is where the semiotician that Grice was brings in not the proto-, which would be boring enough, but a REFERENCE to his ‘Deutero-Esperanto’ – a ‘language’ and not just a bunch of procedures in one’s idiosyncratic repertoire, as his prior High-Way code was, -- hardly the form of life Vitters thought a language, each language was – but a SYSTEM of communication devices that makes Grice the master.  He had been quarrelling with his informalist tutee, Strawson, for too long. While Urmson had learned the lesson and would be more than willing to allow for the equivalence of “and” in “He took off his boots and lay in bed” and “He lay in bed and took off his boots,” Strawson was appealing to different USES (if not meanings, if not senses) of something as basic as the semantic Boolean ADDITION, just for effect. When discussing PIROTESE, Grice will have occasion to show off his classical education background: there’s proto-Pirotese (the pirot that groans), and deutero-pirotese (the pirot that forms an INTENTION to groan in the presence of another pirot), TERTIO-pirotese (the pirot whose intention has become reflexive, i. e. reproduced into a second-order intention to assure that the ground-level intention is recognised), TETRA-pirotese (for the pirot who adds an anti-sneak clause prohibiting any further element of deceit in groaning), PENTO-PIROTESE (when the pirot actually engages his co-pirot attention) and HECTO-pirotese (when the dyad of his groan is completed by some maniestational acknowledgement on the part of his co-pirot: “I’m so sorry to hear!”).  When fighting against Strawson’s INFORMALIST, Grice was constantly invoking Strawson’s nemesis – the formalist. But Grice did not know at his stage where Strawson was going. He had been asked by Mabbott (Strawson’s initial tutor at St. John’s) to join in the tutoring of this scholar who had changed from a planned degree in English to one in politics, economics, and philosophy – eventually he passed with a second – and Mabbott thought that he could not cope with dealing with Strawson’s learning abilities to pass the Logic Paper as it was called. Grice went to assist. Years later, Strawson would still credit “Mr. H. P. Grice, from whom I have never ceased to learn about logic since he was my tutor in this area.” What area? Strawson was indeed using symbolism, both belonging to term logic or subject-and-predicate logic, and predicate logic proper complete with the panopy of what Grice refers to as ‘formal devices’ – and which he lists – six of them – in ‘Logic and conversation’: the first: ‘~’; the second: ‘/\’; the third: ‘\/’; the fourth: ‘>’; the fifth: ‘(Ɐx)’, the sixth: ‘(ⱻx)’; the seventh: ‘(ιx).’ – and it wasn’t like if Strawson was using all of them.  However this allows Grice to provide his tirade against what he was starting to hear from his seminars in some institutions – the coming of the Einhait of Wissenschaft – the unified science proclaimed by the diaspora of the Vienna Circle after the Hun took over. (The Peano school survived because Italy was part of the Axis, but Benedetto Croce made his best to declare that what they were doing was ‘nonsense’ not ‘philosophy’ – vide his Breviario di estettica, la logica come scienza del concetto puro, l’estetica come scienza dell’espressione pura). So this was a pan-world movement that Grice had to fight against. Against informalists like Strawson – and a few others, like Warnock (whose ‘Metaphysics in logic’ may be regarded more informalist than otherwise, especially with his counterattacks to Quine on (Ex) – ‘There are tigers’ – what does it even mean, Warnock was wondering!). Grice saw the formalists as blue-collar at their best, and it is not surprising that, today, logic is taught at Oxford next to Grice’s quarters, on St. Giles, but not as part of what once was the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy. Logic has its own Institute – Informal logic is no longer considered logic! Grice kept changing labels. His informalists (seeing that Ryle was abusing this term, vide his ‘Formal logic and informal logic’) became the neo-traditionalists, an oxymoron that only Grice could dedicate. The whole point of being a con is that  neo-con sounds parodic. Ditto for neo-traditionalist. Is Grice suggesting that Strawson will be inspired and turn into a palæo-traditionalist in return? – So the year before he died, Grice included just before his Strand Six on Conversation (the topic of the present notes) an appendum that relates, where ‘his position’ among the disputants, the neo-traditionalists and the modernists stand. ‘Modernism’ makes slightly more sense, but some have suggested that in this guise, Grice would end up being a ‘post-modern’ – since he does see, in his own words, the debate between the two warrying camps as one that ‘rests on a common mistake’ – no other than DISMISSING the cruciality of the conditions, rational ones, that attend conversation as such, regardeless of subject-matter. And Grice right is, too. The modernists are thus called as heirs to Peano, and Whitehead and Russell. Grice (who once authored a draft ‘Definite descriptions in Russell and in the vernacular’ to be superseded by his ‘Presupposition and conversational implicature’ with variants – theory theory requires that each sketch is sustained –never saw Russell as a philosopher – and then Russell did not either. Russell practiced at Cambridge what at Oxford we call ‘mathematics.’ And mathematics is what Peano was doing. Mathematics is what Frege is doing. This is what make them blue-collar, and no attempt to crystallise anything like ‘the English language,’ or ‘the Italian language’ will come from their quarters. What will come out is Esperanto, or Deutero-Esperanto.  Hilbert is perhaps the clearest formalist or modernist that Grice can cite. While Grice engages in a bit of formal calculus – witness his introduction of ~ with numerical subscripts ~1p2 versus ~2p1 and the introduction rule and elimination rule formulated always with ordering of numerical subscripts understood as bearing maximal scope in the reading of the formula --. Still, Grice calls his thing a ‘natural deduction’ alla Gentzen – nor a piece of gibberish, as Hilbert saw the real formalist should. Grice’s Deutero-Esperanto is not Esperanto. Esperanto is what Hilbert calls Cantor’s paradise by contrast. Consider A: Kie la kato sidis? B: Vi celas la hirtan? A: Jes. B: Sur la tapiŝeto. A: Lo dekano estos furiozo! It is not this type of Esperanto Grice has in mind with his own version – hence DEUTERO-esperanto, but the spirit is there. Again, an appeal to the enduring influence of Austin is telling here. The Master and his Kindergarten spent a full term ‘learning Eskimo’. In what way is Eskimo different from Esperanto, or Deutero-Esperanto, if you must? The point is subtle. Austin’s and Grice’s interest in Eskimo was meant as a rebuttal of Whortf-Sapir’s idea that conversations need be Oxonian. – not in the land of the igloos. So it’s best to regard Grice’s Eskimo explorations as yet another illustration of the cunning of conversational reason going extramural – far from Oxford gown, and far from Oxford town, too! In the Inuit languages (Inuktitut/Iñupiaq), a translation for the typical Austin-Grice conversational exchange would look like this: A: Nani kuskaq aquviva? B: Igluvigap qulaani! Austin’s breakdown: “Kuskaq,” the common word for "cat"; “Aquviva,” Derived from aquvi- (to sit) with a past-tense interrogative ending; “Igluvigaq”: While iglu can mean any kind of house, “igluvigaq” specifically refers to a house made of SNOW (a traditional SNOW-house). Qulaani: This means "on top of" or "above it".  Austin provides a Note on Dialects. While "Eskimo" is a broad term, Grice’s translation is primarily based on Inuktitut (Eastern Canada) and Iñupiaq (Alaska/Western Canada). In some dialects, the word for cat might also be pusi (a loanword from English "pussycat").  In the spirit of his prior new Highway Code what he has in mind is a conversational, rational for sure, between rational conversationalists, who can depend on what Mill – yes more Grice to the Mill, as he would say – on their stipulative definitions, and proceed to converse. In such a ‘formalist’ paradise, any ‘execrescence’ brought by ‘ordinary language’ is forbidden by lex, sed dura.  His Pirotese served his purpose. In his seminar on ‘Pirotese’ a pirot is said to potch and cotch an obble which is fing or fang or in fid with another obble. The operators are intrdocued via content internalization. The pirot – an eagle this time, not a squarrel – perceives a hare on the ground and lurks from a branch. What the eagle has internalized is ‘disjunction’ – her behaviour does not manifest either p or q, but the transient state ‘p or q’ – Grice, like Loar after him, regard that type of psychological pirotological content internalization essential if the eagle is going to survive! The philosopher’s – any philosopher, not just Grice – games with calculus is long dated. Grice had his master to blame, as he witnessed on each Saturday morning, for a while term, Austin’s tenacity in bringing in a new version of SYMBOLO – the sad part, as Grice recalls, is that Austin never cared to provide the TOOLS of the game. These were adjudicated to Mrs. Warnock, who had to cut them in tidy pieces of cardboard for the members of the play group to entertain themselves for the rutinary three hours at St. John’s. Grice’s reference to SYMBOL has to be taken seriously. It is possibly the best expression we can find in Grice to the effect that his idea of conversation as a game was to be taken seriously, and that if someone is to blame for it, that was Austin. In fact, the cardboard items fabricated by Mrs. Warnock are later vintage. In the old days, AUSTIN and his KINDERGARTEN would just draw dots and crosses ‘on bits of paper.’ If we discuss the topic in Part II, Conversations, it is because it is not essential to the framework. It is only as a matter of history that Grice happened to come to assist Strawson in his Logic Paper. It is only a matter of history that in Prolegomena, he recalls the incident and Grice quotes verbatim from Strawson’s Introduction to Logical Theory on ‘if’. Th excursus in the “Logic and Conversation’ with a reference to the metaphysical excrescence that the formalist will judge his informalist rival engages with is non other than causation, which the formalist, like Grice in some respects, is more than willing to RE-troduce rather than introduce in the account of the ‘horse-shoe’. After all, the horseshoe is an INVERTED “C” as devised by Peano – if a non-inverted C may mean CONSEQUENCE, by inverting you invert whatever you originally meant by that. You are engaged in Deutero-Esperanto CUM FLEXIONE! It is easy enough – but don’t exepct systematics – in elaborating on all the conversational contexts that H. P. Grice SYSTEMATICALLY used only for the solution of philosophical problems along his vast oeuvre. The career of a philosopher’s life is never given for granted at Oxford. They don’t really expect much from you and the less noticeable you prove to be the more successful you will be with yourself and your ‘colleagues.’ We see this in Grice. He never ventured a first move. All his oeuvre results from collaborations, and invitations, and if the things got published it was out of a matter of course. His ‘Negation and privation’ (1938) never saw the light of day, and the typescript uses his Harborne address. “Personal identity” he felt like submitting to “Mind” as proof that his Hammondsworth Senior Scholarship at Merton had proved good. “Meaning” was presented to The Oxford Philosophical Society (a society for undergraduates) and published nine years later as submitted by Strawson. A year before, Strawson had submitted Grice’s and Strawson’s ‘In defence of a dogma’ to the same journal. Two conversations feature large there: GRICE: I don’t see how your neighbour’s three-year old can be an adult. QUINE. Neither can I, which proves my apostasy! EXAMPLE II GRICE: I can very well see why your neightbour-s three-year old understood Russell’s theory of types. It IS a piece of cake. STRAWSON. But perhaps it was not properly formulated to him! The Causal Theoy of Perception was Grice’s only collaboration to The Aristotelian Society. “Metaphysics,” with Starwson and Pears, came at Pears’s invitation to broadcast the Third Programme lecture at the BBC and got published by Pears by Macmillan. And so on. ‘Vacuous names’ was just his submission at the request of Davidson and Hintikka for a festschrift for Quine. In this contribution Grice gets at his most conversational with conversations on Marmaduke Bloggs and the cocktail party. ‘Intention and uncertainty’ as his obligatory lecture as having been elected a fellow of the British Academy. And so on. Each conversational illustration requires an expansion.  Grice would rather be seen dead than described as a mathematician as Quine was at Harvard – Quine could read neither Greek nor Latin, never mind speaking them! – but Grice knew that there was some truth to Tarski’s Polish obsession with ‘satisfactory.’ In his seminal essay on truth, Tarski used the following original Polish terms: Satisfaction: spełnianie Satisfactory: trafny Satisfactoriness: trafność  The essay was translated into German.  The original Polish monograph, Pojęcie prawdy w językach nauk dedukcyjnych, was published, and the German translation, Der Wahrheitsbegriff in den formalisierten Sprachen, followed. The OXONIAN version was notably based on the German translation rather than the Polish original, which Grice regretted, since he didn’t speak Polish (“What the eye no longer sees, the heart no longer grieves for” – and his German was itself rudimentary – Grice took Abbott as be speaking German when translating Kant’s Sitte). The German equivalents used for these terms were: Satisfaction: Erfüllung (to satisfy: erfüllen) Satisfactory: adäquat (or sometimes zutreffend) Satisfactoriness: Adäquatheit  Grice would at points express an interest to know more about the specific differences found between the Polish original and the German translation, or perhaps how these terms relate to his Convention T. THE SYSTEM G. ALETHIC In the system, Grice provides a syntax and a semantics – Satisfactoriness of the Tarski type is brought up under the semantic. The syntactic can remain Getzenian – and Grice was careful to study this in detail in Gentzen’s original formulation in German, and at least two other developments, including his own Oxonian one. Gerhard Gentzen introduced these rules in his landmark 1934 doctoral thesis,  Untersuchungen über das logische Schließen (Investigations into Logical Deduction), published in the Mathematische Zeitschrift.  Gentzen is credited with inventing Natural Deduction, which defines logical connectives through their usage (introduction and elimination) rather than just truth tables.  1. Conjunction (AND) / Konjunktion / 連言 (∧)German: I:  ABA∧B(∧-I) 𝔄𝔅𝔄∧𝔅(∧-I) E:  A∧BA(∧-E1)A∧BB(∧-E2) 𝔄∧𝔅𝔄(∧-E1)𝔄∧𝔅𝔅(∧-E2) English: Introduction: If you have  A 𝐴  and you have B 𝐵, you can conclude  A∧B 𝐴∧𝐵Elimination: If you have  A∧B 𝐴∧𝐵, you can conclude  A 𝐴  (or  B 𝐵). Japanese: 導入規則:  A 𝐴 と B 𝐵 が成り立つならば、A∧B 𝐴∧𝐵  を導ける。 除去規則:  A∧B 𝐴∧𝐵  が成り立つならば、 A （または  B 𝐵）を導ける。  Disjunction (OR) / Disjunktion / 選言 (∨)  German: I:  AA∨B(∨-I1)BA∨B(∨-I2) 𝔄𝔄∨𝔅(∨-I1)𝔅𝔄∨𝔅(∨-I2) E:  A∨B[A]…C[B]…CC(∨-E) 𝔄∨𝔅[𝔄]…ℭ[𝔅]…ℭℭ(∨-E) English: Introduction: If you have  A 𝐴, you can conclude  A∨B 𝐴∨𝐵 Elimination: If you have  A∨B 𝐴∨𝐵, and both  A 𝐴 and B 𝐵 separately lead to  C 𝐶, then you can conclude  C 𝐶 Japanese: 導入規則:  A 𝐴  が成り立つならば、 A∨B 𝐴∨𝐵  を導ける。 除去規則:  A∨B 𝐴∨𝐵  が成り立ち、 A 𝐴 と  B 𝐵  のどちらからでも  C 𝐶  が導かれるなら、 C 𝐶  と結論できる。  Material Implication (IF) / Implikation / 条件法 (→) German: I:  [A]…BA⊃B(⊃-I) [𝔄]…𝔅𝔄⊃𝔅(⊃-I) E:  AA⊃BB(⊃-E) 𝔄𝔄⊃𝔅𝔅(⊃-E) English: Introduction: If assuming  A 𝐴  allows you to derive  B 𝐵, you can conclude "If  A 𝐴, then  B 𝐵." Elimination: If you have A 𝐴 and "If  A 𝐴, then  B 𝐵," you can conclude B 𝐵  (Modus Ponens). Japanese: 導入規則:  A 𝐴  を仮定して  B 𝐵  が導かれるなら、 A→B 𝐴→𝐵  を導ける。除去規則:  A 𝐴 と A→B 𝐴→𝐵  が成り立つならば、 B 𝐵  を導ける。  Grice would at times express an interest to how these rules are typeset in Gentzen’s original tree notation, and breakdown of his rules for negation and quantifiers. Grice never really cared to present the introduction and elimination rules as such, but only as APPENDED with this device which Quine found ‘overbearingly complex,’ which was a pity, since Grice had devised it just to please his mentor – one of them; the other was Chomsky (whose grammar and spelling was so much better than Jesperson [sic]!” Inference-Rules (1) [Ass] Any formula may be assumed at any point. ...かと～mt中、(3) [~-, DN]~n+e~,$e-mgtd.（4） ［&+］中w-mjWp-kh中&ne. 「¢ (5) [8c-] 8tn-my &atm-n t  OV Hm-（7） (2) XEn-r, $2,... $*FC, (3) 43... $24VX. then '$ (4) ',.,$/,62,6*,63,. 62H6 （8）［→+，CP］ I 1-m¥ ١,٠٠٠ *+٥-٠x (9) [→-,MPP] Ф(-и+„V[»-m). ф+у. As for the Japanese, Grice adds, however, and indeed leaves it as an open question: “what should be said of Touraki's conjecture,” Grice wonders, “(roughly) that the nature of the introduction rule determines the character of the elimination rule?” Touraki was nowhere to be found, though, and frankly Grice didn’t think he did CARE. Grice explains: “Japanese tends to diverge crucially with Oxonian when it comes both the elimination and the introduction of just the dyadic functors. BULETIC In System Q, Grice’s emphasis was, as per his syntactic rules, in the semantic realm of ‘satisfactoriness’ strictly concerned with his scope-indicating device that alas left Quine cold:  If ø is atomic, ¢ is Corr(1) on Z iff (i) each individual constant in ф has in Z a designatum (i.e. its correlatum is a unit set in D whose element is also in D), and (ii) the designata of the individual constants in ¢, taken in the order in which the individual constants which designate them occur in ф, form an ordered n-tuple which is in the E-set assigned in Z to the predicate constant in ф. 2.If no individual constant dominates , ф is CorrI) on Z iff (i) If ф = ~„4, i is Corr(O) on Z; (il) If ф =4 &„x. W and y are each Corr(1) on Z; (11i) If ф=yv. %. either y or y is Corr(1) on Z; (iv) If ф=→.%, either y is Corr(0) on Zor x is CorrI) on Z.We could now, Grice states, if we wished, introduce generalised versions of some standard binary connectives, as he had done in “Vacuous Names” just to please Quine – getting a very rude ‘Reply to H. P. Grice’ in return.Using ' and "y' to represent sentences (in either the aletic mode of ‘Vacuous Names’ or the Buletic’ mode of his ‘Credibility, Desiability, and Mode Operators”), we could stipulate that CONJUNCTION – Grice’s second symbol in ‘Logic and conversation’ /\:To & y? is satisfactory just in case "" is satisfactory and "u" is satisfactory.DISJUNCTION – Grice’s third symbol in ‘Logic and Conversation’: \/"o or ur is satisfactory just in case one of the pair, "o and yr. is satisfactory, and “IF” – only binary hypo-tactical (not paratactical) operator with which he was concerned – the horseshoe of ‘Logic and Conversation’"o → y is satisfactory just in case either o is unsatisfactory or " is satisfactory. He dismisses “~” as too uncritical to bother. (And indeed, so did I in my extended presentation of the topic – since if Grice is into a general presentation of a theory of conversation, he does not need to deal with each and every operator that a conversationalist happens to be willing to utter – the truth-FUNCTIONAL dyadic connectors seem to satisfy his philosophical (never plain logical, or grammatical) audience!Instead, he adds, however, and indeed leaves it as an open question: “what should be said of Touraki's conjecture,” Grice wonders, “(roughly) that the nature of the introduction rule determines the character of the elimination rule?” Touraki was nowhere to be found, though, and frankly Grice didn’t think he did CARE. Grice explains: “Japanese tends to diverge crucially with Oxonian when it comes both the elimination and the introduction of just the dyadic functors. He provided the following examples.In Japanese, the way you translate logical connectors of the type on which Peano, and later Whitehead, and Russell, along with Frege, displayed an interest, depends heavily on whether you want to imply causality, sequence, or logical inclusion. Take AND (Sequential vs. Logical)In English, "and" often implies "and then" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). Japanese makes this distinction explicit using the -te form of verbs. A: グライスはズボンを脱いで、寝た。Guraisu wa zubon o nuide, neta.Grice took off his trousers and went to bed.B: いや、彼は寝てから、ズボンを脱いだ。Iya, kare wa nete kara, zubon o nuida.No. He went to bed and took off his trousers.Does it implicate "and then"?Yes. When you link two actions with the -te form(nuide), your co-conversationalist naturally assumes the first action preceded the second. If you used a different "and" (like to or ni), it would only work, alas, for nouns (like “the philosopher,” “his pair of trousers,” “the bed”, not actions of the type Grice had in mind when lecturing in Tokyo (“taking off one’s trousers,” “going to bed”).As for OR (Inclusive vs. Exclusive, and Pressumptions of Knowledge:In logic, "A or B" is true if A is true. In natural Japanese, adding "or in the bedroom" after confirming Grice’s wife is in the kitchen can sound grammatically correct but pragmatically strange, just as in the Griceain paradox. A: グライスの奥さんはどこ？ Guraisu no okusan wa doko?Where is Grice’s wife?B: 台所にいるよ。Daidokoro ni iru yo.In the kitchenA: つまり、彼女は台所、あるいは寝室にいるということだね。Tsumari, kanojo wa daidokoro, aruiwashinshitsu ni iru to iu koto dane.Therefore, she is in the kitchen or in the bedroom(Gice’s adaptation to Japanese of his example in “Causal Theory of Perception” delivered at Cambridge – Touraki agreed). Aruiwa or Soretomo, Touraki told Grice, are the standard "or." Using aruiwa would only mimics the logical "or,” but carries the “same conversational "clunkiness,” as Touraki put it, “because it provides less information than is already known by you o me.”IF (Counterfactual Conditionals and other)For hypothetical "If" statements about the past (counterfactuals), Japanese often uses the -tara or -nara form, frequently paired with moshimo. A: もし真珠湾攻撃がなかったら、戸浦貴はオックスフォードを卒業していたMoshimo Shinjuran kougeki ga nakattara, Touraki wa Okusufoo-do o sotsugyou shite ita.)Had Pearl Harbour not been bombed, Touraki would have graduated from Oxford.B: そんなことはない！ Sonna koto wa nai!) He did not!or 違うよ！ Chigau yo!“But he did not!”Grice often expressed to learn more Japanese and be able to use more ‘conversationally natural’ examples to explain his naxims to his Japanese audience, or even analysing the linguistic differences in how logic is encoded between Northern and Southern Japan.In deference to the fact that the year before he died, Grice expressed his views on conversation in terms of what he called the Conversational Imperative, it is worth re-examining what he had said, for one, on imperatives in general – and not as associated with the hypotactical ‘if’ in comparison with ‘and’ or ‘or’ – as he had done in ‘Indicative conditionals’ in “Logic and Conversation.” That particular talk never did have the title “Indicative conditionals” until the year before he died, when Grice submitted to Harvard University Press the manuscript, and the editor suggested a title for each chapter. It is NOT about ‘indicative conditionals,’ but the title was still appropriate in that it had been Strawson’s obsession with him having all wrong with ‘if’ – notably in his introduction to his “Philosophical Logic” for Oxord University Press, where Strawson complains about Grice’s obduracy in trying to distinguish what a conversationalist means when he makes a conversational move of the “if p, q” form – Touraki: “If Pearl Harbour had not been bombed, I would have gradudated fom Oxford.” Grice: “But you did not!” – and what ‘if’ means – if anything, and what the “USE” of ‘if’ is! Distinctions that prove fatal to Grice if you are in a Strawsonian frame of truth-value gap mind!It is then in the second Carus Lectures – pubished posthumously, that Grice returns to the ‘if’ with an OPENER mind, and thinking Bosanquet instead of Strawson.At first I thought Grice would mean BERNARD BOSANQUET, whose logic is a masterpiece and just the Oxonian piece of cake, with cream and cherries, to top Bradley’s SO OBSCURE Hegelian treatise on appearances and how to keep them up for real.In our commentary of Grice’s second Paul Carus lecture, I will have in mind then the formulation of the CONVERSATIONAL IMPERATIVE as Grice always did: NOT as an explicitly conditional imperative, or hypothetical one, but as a plain categorical one, with an implicated protasis if you wish, and we’ll formulate alla Grice:Make your conversational contribution such as it occurs an apprriate one at the stage in which it occurs by the accepted purpose or goal of the conversation in which you are engaged.It seemed obvious to Grice that no such hypothesisation was necessary, but O. P. Wood would possibly have added:“If you want to pass for a decent chap at Oxford”and Nowell-Smith“If you want your contextual implications to be of any use in promoting your overall intelligibility.”None such clauses occur at that stage in Grice. And only when addressing the Fundamental Question of the Conversational Imperative, does the thing turns into an ‘if p, q!’ If you are into a reciprocal maximally efficient psi-transfer in the proceedings of influencing and being influenced by others – with an aim for overall happiness for you and your kin, and your conversational partner and HIS kin, towards the institution of decisions that would eventually lead to action that will keep both of you alive – PLAY the conversational game!In any case it was not Bernard Bosanquet Grice was discussing but his great great nephew, Philippa who had married a Foot.Grice’s enterprise in the Carus second lecture is initially at least, to take up and pursue a version of the notion of some sort of ‘moral’ objectivity – of the type he had arrived with his Conversational Immanuel in ‘Method in philosophical psychology’ where the guidelines applied to any other pirot, and were not whims of Carnap – ad which had been mentioned Grice’s playmate on Saturday mornings, Hare, and his sequel, Mackie, but which Grice had so far deliberately kept out of the limelight. At the conclusion of a short discussion of  the MODVS IMPERATIVS as allowing for a categorical and a hypothetical sub-varieties, we find in Mackie a statement to the effect that, so far as MORALS – of the type which at Oxford is only of concern of the White Professor of MORAL PHILOSOPHY (not conversational pragmatics) is concerned, Hare’s thesis that there is no such thing as an objective value is specifically the denial that any such categorical [as opposed to categorial] element in a moral judgments is objectively valid. The objective values which Hare – following Hartman, Duncan-Jones, and Barnes, of the type that was familiar at Grice’s Corpus Christi – vide Urmson, on the Oxford history of emotivism  – is denying would be action-directing absolutely (no ifs about it, but still imperative) not contingently (in the way indicated) upon the agent's desires and inclinations, and his conversational partner (“Mos” involves a community at Rome: O tempora, o mores!”)Mackie’s language, Grice complains, is not wholly clear. But what is seemingly being asserted is that Mackie's denial of any such thing as an objective value is tantamount to a denial that there is any such absolutely action-directing value, or decision-instituting value, despite what may be claimed in any common or garden ordinary ‘moral’ judgements, even of the most utilitarian type such as Grice’s TRY TO MAKE YOUR CONVERSATIONAL ONE THAT IS TRUE DO NOT SAY WHAT YOU BELIEVE TO BE FALSE DON’T MISLEAD OTHERS DON’T UTTER IMPEARITIVES IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO GET THE DESIRED ACTION REALISED DON’T CRY WOLF IF THERE’S NO WOLF DON’T DELIBERATE OBFUSCATE BY PERSPIRATION! This thesis seems, Grice finds, to be a close relative of a well-known position advanced by Bosanquet, who has discussed it at some length, and to whom Grice then turns his attention – after having called Bosanquet ‘a very minor philosopher, perhaps as minor as Witters – and certainly more minor than Wollaston!”. First, however, Grice wishes to present the question at issue in a slightly more comprehensive way, to as to please the conversationalist pragmaticist amongst us.There seem to be a number of fairly well-publicized dichotomies, to which the objectivity or non-objectivity (subjectivity? inter-subjectivity?) of values may be closely related. These include the dichotomy of an utterance in the MODVS IMPERATIVS being categorical or hypothetical imperative, or the the dichotomy of moral value and non-moral (futilitarian) value, the dichotomy of absolute value and relative value, and the dichotomy of unconditional and conditional value. How would each of these variants affect the CONVERSATIONAL IMPERATIVE?The question at issue seem to Grice to concern the relation of each of these four or five dichotomies to others in the list. Grice hopes to return to this array of questions after a hopefully succinct presentation of what Grice take to be Bosanquet’s views.The following Grice thinks would be a fair summary -- in Grice’s language:An utterance in the MODVS IMPERATIVUS – Grice’s Conversational Imperative – is of the hypothetical form if it is distinguished by the existence of an associated "let out" or "extrication"condition. This will consist in the existence of an associated end, -- Cicero’s finis conversationalis --, a lack of desire – our VOLA VOL B – not vacuous in the shared case of conversation -- for which will remove from the potential agent or agents in the case of the conversational dyad all reason – as per what we have been calling Grice’s CONVERSATIONAL REASON -- to carry out the injunction contained in Grice’s conversational imperative. Grice gives an example:The imperative If you want a attain maximally efficient influencing via psi-transfer, follow the Conversational Imperative!leaves even Grice cold if he has no interest in attaining a maximally efficient influencing via psi-transfer..The widespread belief that an imperatives pertaining to what we’ll call the CONVERSATIONAL MOS – or custom – or moral -- is categorical, in that it has a reason-giving force –as per what Grice calls the conversational reason -- that is independent of any actually realised desire or volition or conation or willingness or what have you on the part of the potential agent, is mistaken.There is no such automatic reason-giving force, and so, Bosanquet claims, no categorical imperative, such as Grice’s Conversational Imperative.Though there is no such categorical conversational imperative, there are some "non-hypothetical uses" of "ought", alla Hare, where a disclaimer of interest would have no extricating effect.A: Children ought to be seen?B: What about heard?These ‘non-hypothetical’ uses of ‘ought’ (a modal, not MODVS IMPERATIVS) occur in "oughts" of etiquette, conduct in games, and possibly (colloquially) in this or that alleged moral, or moralizing statement or injunction.GRICE SENIOR: You ought to tell the truth.GRICE JUNIOR: And so ought you. But the reason why a disclaimers of interest – as opposed to a disclaimer of DUTY (Grice is using the parlance of Urmson and Ross re-editing Prichard ultimately wishing to cash obligation and duty in desire and interest -- have no effect here is that non-hypothetical uses of  Hare’s favourite modal expander, “ought to” are, atypically, not reason-giving at all, and “so there is here nothing to be extricated from,” or more correctly, Grice corrects Bosanquet’s grammar: “there is nothing from which to be extricated.”So if moral "oughts" are to be reason-giving at all, they must be interpreted (or re-interpreted) as expressing hypothetical imperatives, depending on some end (like human happiness) which decent people can be counted on to be concerned about.To regard moral precepts as categorical imperatives must be to base morality on reason; anti-moral behaviorwould have to be represented as counter-rational. But there is nothing irrational in immorality; no contradiction or selt-defeating behaviour is (characteristically) present.We do not want moral "oughts" to be ipso facto motivating or compelling, regardless of interest or inclination or desire. We want volunteers rather than conscripts in moral service.In an earlier version, morality had to be partially justified by reference to the happiness of the agent. In a later version, concern for the welfare of others, as part of one's own happiness, demands a consequential concern for morality, with a view to the welfare of others.Now before I get too heavily involved in substantive issues, it might be a good idea for me to pay a little heed to the structural aspects of the region under debate: let us have a look at the girders before covering them with cement. There seem to Grice to be not less than six dichotomies which are under review, though not every philosopher would regard all of them as well founded.Some philosophers would regard some of them as not distinct from one another, and (I hope) all philosophers would regard some or even all of them as obscure, perhaps even intolerably obscure. These dichotomies are (or include):First dichotomy: objective-non-objective (or perhaps, subjective), (entity, value), a dichotomy or cluster of dichotomies on which I have already spent some time.Second dichotomy:categorical-hypothetical (imperative)Third dichotomy:absolute-relative (value)Fourth dichotomy:moral-non-moral (value, imperative, etc.)Fifth dichotomy:unconditional-conditional (value, etc.)Sixth dichotomy:underived-derived (value)Grice’s Special (2. Cats and Hypes), like other members of the bunch, calls (even clamours) for interpretation.A blind logical nose might lead us (or be led) to the assumption of a link between hypothetical imperatives andhypothetical statements (propositions). Such a link no doubt exists, but the. most obvious version of it is plainly Inadequate. At least one other philosopher besides myseli has noticed that 'If he molests the children, you should have him arrested' is unlikely to express a hypothetical imperative; and that even if one restricts oneself to cases in which the antecedent clause specifies a want, we find pairs of examples like:If you want to go to Chicago, you should travel by AA via Cleveland.A: I want to go to Chicago. Should I travel by AA via Cleveland.B: No.If you want to go to Philadelphia, you should see a psychiatrist.A: I want to go to Philadelphia.B: You should see a psychiatrist.where it is plain that one is, and the other is not, the expression of a hypothetical imperative (I won't tell you which).A less easily eliminable suggestion, yet one which would still interpret the notion of a "hypothetical imper-ative" in terms of that particular logical form to which the names "hypothetical" and "conditional" attach, would be the following. Let us assume that it is established, or conceded, as legitimate to formulate conditionals in which not only the consequents (apodoses) are couched in some mood (mode) other than the indicative, as in conditional commands ('If you see the whites of their eyes, shoot (fire)) but also the antecedents (protases), or some part (clause) of them; in which case all of the following might be admissible conditionals:If let the cat be taken to the vet, let it be put in a cage.A: I’m taking the Dean’s dog (sorry, cat) to the vet.B: Please, in order to do so: Put it in a cage, please – you know how cats behave.If let the cat be taken to the vet and there is no cage available, then let Martha put it on her lap.A: I’m taking the Dean’s dog (sorry, cat) to the vet.B: Please place it comfortably in a nice cage.A: I don’t see any.B: Then let the servant deal with it!If the cat is sick, let it be taken to the vet.A: The Dean’s dog (sorry, dog) looks rather sick.B: Take her to the vet – and tell them all about her!If this suggestion seems rebarbative, think of these quaint conditionals (when they are quaint) as conditionalized versions of arguments, such asLet the cat go to the vet, so let it be put in a cage.A: Take the cat to the vet!B: What’s the little word?A: Please.Let the cat go to the vet; there isn't a cage, so let Martha put the cat on her lap. A: Take that sick dog (sorry, cat) to the vet, cage or no cage.B: Servant’s duty, not mine!and then maybe the discomfort will be reduced.Among conditionals with an imperatival or "volitival" consequent, some will have "mixed" antecedents (partly indicative, partly imperatival) and some will have purely indicative antecedents (like the last of my three examples). CONVERSATIONAL IMPERATIVE:Co-operate!Grice gives a provisional definition of the terms categorical and hypothetical imperative. A hypothetical imperative (such as the ones he never formulated for his Conversational Imperative, at the risk of offending his audience of philsoophers – but Bosanquet is representing the Motherhood of Oxford) is either a conditional the consequent of which is imperatival and the antecedent of which is imperatival or mixed (partly indicative, partly imperatival), or it is an elliptical – or enthymematic, as Cicero would have it -- version of such an imperative. A categorical imperative, such as Kant’s, Kantotle’s or Grice’s conversational imperative, is an imperative which is either not conditional in form, or else, if it is conditional, has a purely indicative antecedent.Quick comments:The structures which Grice is offering as a way of interpreting a hypothetical imperative (!p ) q) and a categorical imperative (!p) do not, as they stand, offer any room for the appearance of practical modalities – not modes poper -- like ‘ought’ and ‘should,’ or ‘may’ and ‘must’ – as in YOU MUST NOT LIE, CONVERSATIONALLY OR OTHER which are so prominently visible in the standard examples of those kinds of imperatives. The imperatives suggested by Grice are really imperatives – utterances in the Imperative Mode -- they conclude do such and such',  not 'you/one ought to do such and such.  as Grice indeed formulated his Conversational Imperative pre-Logic and Conversation in ‘The Causal Theory of Perception’: One ought to make the strongest conversational move possible under the circumstances. Reported by Strawson in 1954 in Introduction to Logical Theory. But maybe, Grice thinks, Grice’s suggestion could be modified to meet the demand for the appearance or occurrence of ‘ought to,’ or ‘may,’ ‘should’, and ‘must’ -- if such occurrence is needed. It would remain to be decided how close the preferred reading of Grice’s 'deviant' conditional imperative would be to the accepted interpretation of standard hypothetical imperatives.  IF YOU Want to engage in a reciprocally maximally efficient scenario of psi-transfer, follow the conversational imperative! But even if there were some divergence, that might be acceptable if the 'new' imperatives turned out to embody a more precise notion than the standard conception. Grice indeed thinks that there are serious doubts of the admissibility of conditionals with non-indicative antecedents which will be to Grice’s mind connected with the very difficult question whether the indicative mode (both exhibitive and sub-informative) and the other modes are co-ordinate, or whether the indicative – ‘declarative’ in “Meaning” 1948, the turnstile, asterisk sub-psi – sub-exhibitive, sub-informative -- mode is in some crucial sense prior to the other modes.  Moral applications. Indeed, Grice proposes VOL as PRIOR to JUD in “Method in philosophical psychology” just to appease Schopenhauer – yet sill he confesses he does not quite know the answer to that question. In what follows, we will take the MODVS IMPERATIVS as taking PRIORITY over any other mode just because there is an instantaneous definition of JUD in terms of VOL (“Will is the father to the thought”, “We soon believe what we desire” – Schopenhauer – The World as Will. Die Welt als Wille. (SCHOPENHAUER – HEGEL interlude Both Schopenhauer and Hegel significantly expanded the philosophical investigation of volition by elevating "the Will" from a purely moral faculty to a central metaphysical principle, though they did so in opposing directions. Schopenhauer: The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer’s masterwork, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, posits that the "Will" is the fundamental, irrational essence of the universe—the "thing-in-itself" that lies behind all appearances.  Publication History: First Edition (1818/1819): Published in late 1818 (dated 1819), the work was initially a commercial failure. Second Edition (1844): Expanded into two volumes. The first was a revised version of the original, while the second contained fifty supplementary chapters. Third Edition (1859): A further expanded version published just before his death. Extension of Volition: Schopenhauer moved volition beyond Kant’s "practical reason." For him, the Will is a blind, insatiable, and non-rational "urging" that governs both nature and human behavior.  Hegel: A Rational Volition  Hegel viewed volition (Will) as the expression of Geist (Spirit) moving toward self-conscious freedom through history.  Publication History (Major Works):1807: Phenomenology of Spirit (Phänomenologie des Geistes).1812–1816: Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik).1817: Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences(Revised 1827, 1830).1821: Elements of the Philosophy of Right(Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts).Extension of Volition: Unlike Schopenhauer's "blind" Will, Hegel’s Will is fundamentally rational. He argued that true volition is only realized in the "objective spirit" of social institutions like the state and law. Connection to Kant and the "Puritan" ViewThe "puritan" or strictly moral view of volition in the 18th century often centered on Kant’s Categorical Imperative, where the philosopher's role was to define the "pure" will—a will motivated solely by duty and reason, isolated from "pathological" desires. Schopenhauer’s Critique: He argued Kant "smuggled" religious ethics into philosophy by framing moral laws as "commands" (the Imperative), which Schopenhauer saw as a vestige of theological thinking.Expansion: Both Schopenhauer and Hegel broke the "puritan" boundary by arguing that volition is not just a tool for moral choice, but the very engine of reality. For Hegel, this engine is the march of history; for Schopenhauer, it is a tragic, metaphysical cycle of suffering. Historical Influence on Oxford PhilosophyHistorically, these German shifts in volition had a profound but delayed impact on Oxford philosophy:British Idealism (Late 19th Century): Figures like T.H. Green and F.H. Bradley at Oxford were heavily influenced by Hegel’s view of the rational will and its realization in the community, moving away from simple British empiricism.Philosophy of Action (20th Century):Schopenhauer’s identification of "willing" with "bodily movement" (rather than a mental cause) influenced Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose ideas later shaped the "Oxford Style" of Philosophy of Action(e.g., G.E.M. Anscombe).Critique of Volition: Modern Oxford action theory often follows Schopenhauer’s lead in rejecting the "ghost in the machine" (the idea of a separate mental "volition" causing a physical act), preferring to see action and will as a single event. Grice often felt like exploring how Wittgenstein’s Tractatus specifically adapted Schopenhauer’s concept of the Will, or look more closely at the Hegelian influence on Oxford’s political philosophy.Indeed, since Grice always prayed for the longitudinal unity of philosophy, the conversational pragamticists is always to reminisce!Fichte and Schelling were the primary architects of the "metaphysics of will" that paved the way for Hegel and Schopenhauer.Publication History & The Shift in VolitionWhile Kant viewed the Categorical Imperative as a product of "pure practical reason," his successors felt he hadn't explained where that agency comes from. Fichte (1794 Wissenschaftslehre): He transformed Kant's "Reason" into the Absolute I. For Fichte, the universe exists only because the "I" wills it to exist as a hurdle to be overcome. Volition isn't just a choice; it is the fundamental act of being.Schelling (1809 Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom): He moved away from pure logic toward a "dark," unconscious ground of the will. He argued that at the heart of existence is a primordial longing or "Ur-wille." This directly influenced Schopenhauer’s "World as Will." The "Vintage" Oxford InfluenceIn the mid-to-late 19th century, this German idealism crossed into the UK, specifically through the Oxford Idealists (like T.H. Green and F.H. Bradley). Oxford scholars used Fichte and Hegel to argue against British Empiricism, claiming that the state and the individual were driven by a Common Willrather than just sensory data. To help you trace this more clearly, Grice tried to focus on Schopenhauer’s specific critique of Kant, as he grew to be more interested in how the Oxford Idealistsadapted these ideas for politics, that eventually led to the war that he suffered as a draftee to the navy. In Kant’s mature ethics, Willkür (choice) is the executive power that decides how to act, while Wille(will) is the legislative faculty of reason that provides the law. The distinction is crucial for the Categorical Imperative (CI) because it explains how a person can be free even when they choose to act immorally. 1. Relation to the Categorical ImperativeWille (Legislative): Kant identifies Wille with pure practical reason itself. It does not choose; it only legislates the Categorical Imperative as the supreme moral law.Willkür (Executive): This is the "power of choice." It is the faculty that actually adopts a maxim (a personal rule of action).Cf what Grice calls the power structure of the soul – in his ‘Davidson on intending’ (Grice claims Davidson wants to see us as guided missiles, alla Armstrong, automata, or zombie -- The Link: For an action to have moral worth, the Willkür must freely choose to align its maxims with the law provided by the Wille (the CI). If Willkür is determined only by sensory impulses, it is "animal choice" (arbitrium brutum); if it can be determined by pure reason, it is "free choice". Treatment by Post-Kantian Philosophers The "Kantian Will" became a central battleground for German Idealism and its critics:  Philosopher Key Treatment of the Will FichteArgued that Kant's CI lacked content and needed a better "deduction." He linked the will to a biological drive(Trieb) and the "summons" (Aufforderung) from others, making the recognition of other free agents a condition for one's own free will. SchellingCritiqued Kant's dualism. He defined freedom as the "capacity for good and evil," arguing that if the will were only free when following the moral law, then evil acts wouldn't be "free." He viewed the will as a "primal being" or non-rational force. HegelIn the Philosophy of Right, he attacked Kant's "empty formalism." He viewed Willkür as "false freedom" (mere arbitrariness) and argued that true freedom is only found in Ethical Life(Sittlichkeit), where the individual's will is integrated into social and political institutions. SchopenhauerFlipped Kant's priority: he saw the "Will" not as rational, but as a blind, striving, non-rational force that is the inner essence of the world. For him, the "intellect" (reason) is merely a servant to this aimless, suffering-inducing Will.Would you like a deeper breakdown of Hegel's specific critique of "empty" maxims, or perhaps Schopenhauer's metaphysical shift from reason to blind drive?For Grice, a third interpretation of the distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives would, like the first two, be formal in character, and would link the categorical-hypothetical distinction, in relation to imperatives, with one of the other listed dichotomies, that between absolute and relative value. Hypothetical imperatives would be end-relative value attributions, and might be analogous to evidence-relative probabilities; categorical imperatives would not be end-relative. In my eyes this suggestion has the great merit that the idea of the relativization of value might (would) apply to other kinds of relativization than relativization to ends; a notable member of the wider group of relativizations would be relativization to subjects of ends, persons who have or who might have ends ("valuable to me"). It is my suspicion that the range of different kinds of relativization is going to prove enormously important in the clarification of the idea of value; it might, for example, turn out that non-relative (absolute) value has some special connection with some favoured relativization of the notion of value (e.g. to people). This third suggestion might help us to see hypothetical and categorical imperatives as important in this context. We might indeed, not inappropriately, use a further member of the original list of dichotomies, the unconditional-conditional value dichotomy, as a means for expressing the distinction between value relative to an end, and value not relative to an end. Then the distinction between absolute and relative value would include, as a special case, but would not be restricted to, the distinction between unconditional and conditional value.(d) The last interpretation which I shall mention seems not to be, as its predecessors were, formal in character. It is close to part of what Kant says on this topic, and it also either is or is close to the interpretation employed by Foot.It is a distinction between an imperative being escapable (hypothetical, through the absence of a particular desire or concern, and its not being thus escapable (categorical).If we understand the idea of escapability sufficiently widely, the following imperatives are all escapable, even though their logical form is not in every case the same:You should give up popcorn.A: Where are the Franks?B: My lips are sealed. I’m giving up conversation.To get slim, you should give up popcorn.A: I want you to scratch my back.B: Scratch mine firstIf you want to get slim, you should give up popcorn.A: Did the cat sit on the mat?B: You want to know the truth?A: No.Now suppose that Grice has no concern to get slim. One might say that the first imperative is "escaped", provided giving up popcorn has nothing else to recommend it, by being falsified. The second and third would not, perhaps, be falsified, but they would, in the circumstances, be inapplicable (to me)—and inapplicability, too, counts as escape. Categorical imperatives, however, are in no way escapable.We should, Grice suggests, consider not merely imperatives of each sort, together with the range of possible characterizations of the sorts, but also the possible forms of (practical argument into which such imperatives (particular hypothetical imperatives) might, on this or that interpretation, enter, and even forms of (practical argument which involve not hypothetical imperatives themselves, but close relatives of them. To indicate the importance, for a proper understanding of this thorny area, of a consideration of the forms of argument into which they may enter and not merely of the imperatives themselves, I shall give three such patterns of argument, at least superficially different from one another, and (so it seems to me) of varying degrees of breadth of application.(using dichotomy of original-derived value)To defend the Philosophy Department would be a good thing. (It is not specified whether the value is original or derived.)If to defend the Philosophy Department would be a good thing, then to learn to use bows and arrow: vould be a good thing (as conducive)So: To learn to use bows and arrows would be a good thing. (This would be derived value, provided the second premiss is true.)It is noble to fight for your country unconditional value).It is valuable, in the matter of fighting for one's country, to join one of the services (ascription of conditional value).So: Join up! (We cannot conclude either to unconditional value of joining up (false) nor to conditional value of joining up, with respect to fighting for one's country, since this is one of the premisses.)It is good for me to increase my holdings in oil shares.If I visit my father he will give me some oil shares.So: It is good for me to visit my father. (This argumentpurportedly transmits relative value, that is, subject-relative value.)Now where does Bosanquet stand, Grice wonders, in respect of claims about value?It seems to Grice that the issues on which battle has been joined within this topic are always (nearly always) related to different views about the potency of reason and conversational reason in particular (as reflected in the lesser scope or the larger scope allowed for the appearance on the scene of reasons). It is by no means clear to me where, precisely, Foot stands in this spectrum (if it matters), but wherever it is, it is somewhere in the middle.The stages which I have in mind are presented in order ofdecreasing scepticism, or increasing trust in the power of reason, or conversational reason in particular, or, as I would like to be able to put the matter, increasing trust in the legitimate and efficacious operation of the concept of value in the conduct of argument.Thorough-going scepticism. The notion of value has no genuine legitimate application in argument; it is never strictly speaking the case that one should draw such and such a conclusion from a set of premisses, that it would be good or valid to draw such and such a conclusion, or bad not to. We do, of course, as victims of bad habits, commonly talk that way, and we do, inveterately, throw around the word "reasons", -- but never ‘conversational reasons” -- but this is only a way of talking and is not to be taken seriously: it may be hallowed, but it is not at all holy. The things we say are either not to be regarded as true, or if true are true only in some Pickwickian sense of the words employed. There are strictly speaking no arguments at all, as (allegedly) it is not too difficult to 'demonstrate'.Stingy cognitive rationalism. The terms "value" and "reasons" – if not The Critique of Conversational Reason – or Speranza’s Critique of Conversational Reason – or Grice’s Critique of Conversatinal Reason, with proper Teutonick capitals -- properly apply, in a non-Pickwickian sense, only within the confines of the area of factual belief, the"alethic" area, and even there only subject to strong safeguards. The only way in which one can find a conclusion validated or called for by reason (subject to reasons) is by finding a case in which to deny rather than accept that conclusion would involve one in contradiction.Open-handed cognitive rationalism. The crucial terms ("value" and "reason") have a more general licence (inductive reasons are, for example, OK); but strictly legitimate application is still confined to the alethic area.Limited cognitive-cum-practical rationalism. Futilitarian?  The crucial terms have a liberal authentic application in the cognitive (alethic) zone, and also a limited authentic application in the practical zone, where they are limited (otherwise than merely as a way of talking) to the area of the relation of means to ends, the area of Aristotelian SElvóTn (whatever that area may be).Unlimited cognitive-cum-practical rationalism. No types of application are subject to sceptical smear.Now, as Grice says, he inot really very sure where Bosanquet stands (as if Grice should care) in this array of stances; Grice suspects ‘somewhre in category 4.’Grice is however also fairly sure that wherever Bosanquet may stand, quite a large number of philosophers at Oxford – never mind Koenigsburg and envions (Berlin and Prussia included) have occupied, or have thought that they occupied, one of the intermediate positions bearing numbers between 2 and 4 (inclusive). The further suspicion which Grice would like at this point to voice is that the adoption of one of these "part-way" positions is incoherent, that you either have to be a whole-hog sceptic or else not a sceptic at all.Half-hogging is no good. Grice does not attempt to prove this point then; in the coming lecture he does try to prove a closely related thesis (that if you get as far as stage 4 you have to (in some sense of "have to") go on to stage 5. But there is a stronger and a weaker interpretation of "have to" – as in You HAVE to follow Grice’s Conversational Imperative!The stronger interpretation would allege some form of contradiction in accepting 4 but refusing S, and I rather doubt if that can be shown. Grice concedes he has hopes, however, of being able to reach a weaker conclusion, that to accept 4 and to reject 5 (to hold, for example, that hypothetical imperatives are all right, but that categorical imperatives are not) would be wantonly to refuse to satisfy a legitimate rational demand. But for that Grice warns his audience that they must wait patiently for his lecture the next day on the metaphysics of value – when tigers tigersise and humans humanise, which is more Hegelian in spirit, since it’s all about the conversational metier.To initiate a substantive discussion of Bosanquets position, Grice asks what there is in it to appeal to us, and again what there is in it to make us hesitate or recoil; and in asking these questions Grice notes that reactions, whether favourable or unfavourable, seem likely to be strong. It seems to Grice that in these discussions a key role is played by the idea of reason, or conversational reason or of reasons; -- never conversational reasons, since Grice never needed one to engage in conversation -- it will be some set of considerations about reasons – not conversational reason as such -- which will turn some people on, at least to begin with, and it will be another set of considerations (or possibly even the same set of considerations) about reasons – but not conversational reason, or even reasson [Freud’s RATIONALISATION, taken by Pears as some kind of a reason you give for your action that was never there to CAUSE your action -- which will, at least to begin with, turn other people off. Let us turn first to the considerations which might engender a favourable response.A central view of Bosanquet’s (which might indeed have an extension beyond the realm of the concept of ought, so as to apply to a larger range of valuations) is that the primary function (though not its invariable function) of the use of an "ought" statement is to produce, or to state the existence of, a reason for a potential agent to perform some specified action or to occupy some specified position or situation. Bosanquet would go on to say, Grice thinks, that it has been, at least since Hume, a commonplace of philosophy that the existence for someone of a reason to perform an action or to occupy a position or situation depends on his having some desire, interest alla Prichard, not duty -- or disposition of will pointing in that direction.It is objectionable to suppose that there are any features the mere recognition of which is sufficient to provide one with a reason – never mind conversational reason -- for doing something. The objectionableness of such a supposition may be of either of two kinds.The supposition may be disbelievable, or repugnant to the intellect or judgement.Or it may be distasteful, or repugnant to the will -- or to inclination. A subsidiary argument of Bosanquet's is, I think, one which would represent the idea that morality ---or Oxonian custom, as Bosanquet prefers -- consists in a system of categorical imperatives as distasteful, indeed morally distasteful; or at least as less tasteful than the more Humean alternative.We would rather (Bosanquet suggests) be able to think of people as volunteers in moral service, than be forced to think of them as conscripts, or draftees, as the more Kantian position would entail, onto the conversational game.The kind of moral (or more or less moral) distaste to which Bosanquet briefly alludes is one which Grice feels that, as someone brought up in the enlightened 'pinko,’ at least on the surface, atmosphere of Oxford, as it used to be, Grice understands very well. We are in reaction against our Victorian forebears.We are independent and we are tolerant of the independence of others, unless they go too far. We do not like discipline, rules (except for rules of games and rules designed to secure peace and quiet in Colleges), self-conscious authority, and lectures or reproaches about conduct (which are usually ineffective anyway, since those whom they are supposed to influence.Above all we dislike punishment, which only too often just plays into the hands of those who are arrogant or vindictive. We don't much care to talk about "values" (pompous) or "duties" (stuffy, unless one means the duties of servants or the military, or money extorted by the customs people).Our watchwords (if we could be moved to utter them) would be Live and let live, though not necessarily with me around' or 'If you don't like how I carry on, you don't have to spend time with me With these underlying attitudes, it is not surprising that we do not find Kant congenial, and that we do very much like Strawson's ‘Freedom and Resentment.’Now Bosanquet (an old friend of Grice) told him on one of the more recent occasions when we discussed these questions that Bosanquet had not intended to attach very much weight to her mot about 'volunteers and conscripts. If this is so, then Grice thinks that in one pretty important respect Bosanquet was doing an injustice to the propounded argument. For whether or not it in fact succeeds on this occasion, it is very much the right kind of consideration to bring to bear. In the case of some sorts of valuation, the apparatus for determining whether some particular target should be accorded favourable or un-favourable valuation cannot sensibly be turned upon itself; we cannot sensibly ask whether the apparatus for determining pictorial valuation, or our use of this apparatus, is pronounced by the apparatus itself to be worthy of favourable pictorial valuation, since neither the apparatus nor our use of it is a picture. We can ask whether the standards (so far as we can identify them) applied in determining whether something is funny, or our applications of these standards, are themselves licensed as being funny by those very standards.But Grice very much doubts whether an affirmative answer would be regarded as a significant endorsement of those standards. In other cases -- perhaps, for example, with regard to standards of conversational ‘utility’ — it may well be that a certificate of conformity to these standards, received by the standards themselves or by our use of them, would be properly regarded as an endorsement of the standards. But if, as is the case with both moral or conversational standards, the standards (in advance of any precise determination of their value) are thought to be paramount are usually either too sensitive or not sensitive enough). (not susceptible to being overridden) and it is also the case that the standards endorse themselves or our use of them, then it might, I think, be plausibly suggested that such an endorsement is specially powerful, to the extent that its availability might be taken as a relevant interpretation of the notion of objectivity. And an ethical system which failed this test would not have much to hope for beyond a decent burial.What seems to me wrong with Foot's procedure at this point in rabbits trim has tisinabed proceduica for but that on this occasion it does not produce any rabbits.As one of Grice’s colleagues at Seattle (Keyt) remarks, once you are in one of the services it does not matter whether you are one of the volunteers or one of the conscripts.Both are treated alike, and indeed, virtually no one knows which you are. The fact that a consideration is motivating independently of any desire one may have does not imply as a matter either of physical or logical necessity that one in fact acts in line with it; as Kant and others have observed, it is only too obvious that all too often one does not act in line with it.One is not compelled or constrained unless by "constrained"/"compelled" is meant "rationally constrained"/"compelled"-and, as Kant suggested, maybe that kind of constraint/compulsion is just what the doctor ordered for the free man.Grice turns now to the specification of an attempt to represent the position of Bosanquet's opponent, a champion of 'the received view' which allows a viable distinction between categorical and hypothetical imperatives and seeks to associate moral valuation with categorical imperatives, not as distasteful but as disbelievable. What I have to say has an obvious relation to questions which students in ethics are ready to pose within their first week of classes about whether and how it is possible to justify ends. I am not sure that the considerations with which I shall be concerned are actually voiced by Foot; but that she would assent to them seems to me to be strongly indicated by her view that reasons have to be constituted as such by their connection with desire or interest, and by her refusal (explicitly avowed to me) to countenance such questions as whether, independently of any connection with actual desires, a person should have recognized as a reason something which he did not so recognize. I shall take a little trouble to exhibit clearly the structure of the present issue.It might be suggested that an adherent of the received view is likely to have a certain picture of practical reasoning which is, perhaps, redolent of Aristotle. We decide on the performance of a particular action by ascribing to it a certain value, which is inherited from some state of affairs to which the action would be conducive; the inherited value will be recognized to have descended through a sequence of inheritances, starting from some item whose value is not inherited but original. This picture raises at once hoary problems about how the original value comes to be there and how it comes to be detected. One who adheres to Foot's scheme, however, can lay claim to a capacity to solve or to bypass these difficulties. It is a mistake, he can say, to think of practical reasoning as recognizing the transmission of an original non-relativized value down a chain of inheritors: what we start with is a relativized value (relativized to some person or potential agent), and it is this value which is (sometimes) transmitted.So the question of justifying ends, otherwise than by showing them to be actually desired, does not arise.The legitimacy of a conception of absolute value, of a kind being denied by the suppositions adherent to Foot's view, is a main topic of my third lecture, and so what I say here should be regarded as having a fairly limited aim. It is designed only to show, or suggest, that should it turn out to be theoretically desirable to be able to regard absolute (non-relative) value as attaching to some ends, we should not be at a loss when it comes to saying how such absolute value is to be detected, or how rational decision about ends is possible. While Grice would not claim to be in a position to give a tidy, comprehensive theoretical account of the matter, it seems to me pretty clear that ordinary agents are thoroughly practised at end-selection. (At this point I draw heavily upon a paper on Happiness which I am prone to leliver, wholly or in part, at every possible opportunity.By way of preliminary, three general points seen appropriate.Ends go around in packs or systems; so in determining the suitable ends two linked considerations come into play: the suitability of the end considered as an individual, and also its suitability when it is considered as a member of an actual or potential system of ends (whether in this or that way it does or would fit in).Alterations in and institutions of systems of ends normally occur as the outcome of revision; system S is substituted for systemS which is previously ensconced, and what S' and Shave in common is much more extensive than the respects in which they differ. As with clothes, changes are mostly matters of patching; and where a new suit is acquired, it is usually ready-made by professional purveyors, like churches or political parties, or private persons like spouses.It is (fortunately for us) possible to make revisions in our system without having to articulate (which we almost certainly would be unable to do) the contents of the system. We can consider a possible change and see what comes to mind, one way or the other, about such a change.Systems in situ seem (not very surprisingly) to be very much like the human beings in whom they are situated.Both change, but in the normal course of events not usually very rapidly: and when changes occur they tend to occur according to natural laws or trends: systems and people grow and develop and sometimes even decay. So when we look for the properties which commend systems, we find them to be not unlike those aspects of stability which commend systems of beliefs; which according to Idealists (of the Oxford kind, Bradley, etc.) are such things as coherence, consistency, and comprehensiveness; and it is systems deficient in such respects as these which get modified. Systems which are harmonious, in that the realization of or pursuit of some elements enhances the prospects for other elements, are favoured. So are systems which are (so to speak) teleologically suitable, which bring into play more fully rather than less fully the capacities and attributes which are central to one's constitution as a human being. So, again, are systems which are flexible, which allow for easy and untraumatic revision where revision is required.When we turn to a consideration of individual ends, we find a variety of procedures which we use to assess the suitability or unsuitability of suggested or possible ends, some of which can also be applied to the assessment of systems of ends. Sometimes we ask whether the adoption of such and such an end would put us at the mercy of circumstances beyond our control; to what extent we should need what Aristotle called "ektos choregia" like government grants. Sometimes we enquire about the likely durability of an actual or suggested interest: Would we get tired of it", 'How long would we be capable of sustaining it?, etc. Sometimes we see whether we or someone else can present us with a favourable (or unfavourable) 'picture' of life with such and such as one of our ends. Sometimes we raise second-order questions about the desirability, of one sort or another, of our having some specified item as an end ('Could I be talked into it?, 'Would it be a useful interest to have?", Would I look ridiculous if I went in for that?, etc.).The purpose of this lightning tour of methods of end-assessment has not been to present a systematic account of them, though that would fill a need; it has been intended merely to indicate that so far from being at a loss when it comes to the assessment of ends, we seem to have a wealthof resources at our disposal; so the suggestion that Foot's position has the advantage of enabling us to dispense with such assessment would be to try to pull us out of a hole which we are not in. But there is a further question, namely, whether the methods which we do use for such assessment are more in tune with Foot's position or with a Kantian position. Here I find the outcome not at all clear.It is not at all clear to Grice how the criteria which we seem to apply in the assessment of ends, and of attachments to them, are to be justified, or even whether they are to be justified; and our employment of some of them seems somewhat fluctuating (for example, durability of an interest as something solid (and so good), or as stolid and so not good). It might turn out that though we evaluate ends, we do not evaluate the criteria by which we evaluate ends; and that might favour Bosanquet. But who knows?Grice then turns to a brief delineation of two aspects of Bosanquets position which seem to have some tendency to make things difficult for Bosanquet. The first was vividly presented in a talk given by Grice, the relevant passage from which I shall summarize. If I say to you that the door is closed, or that the cat sat on the mat, standardly my purpose in saying this to you is to get you to believe that the door is closed.There are variant descriptions which apply to some cases, like reminding you that the door is closed, or that the cat sat on the mat, letting you know that I am aware that the door is closed or that the cat sat on the mat, and so on. But it is natural to think of the arousal of a belief as the central case. When I utter a (grammatical) imperative, there is more than one thing I may be doing; if, as a friend watching you shiver, I say'Close the door' (in a gentle tone of voice, perhaps),OrA: The dog (sorry, cat) is sick.B: Put her in a cage and take it to the vet!I could be advising you to shut the door (since you are cold), or to put the cat in the cage.If, as a parent to a child, I say 'Shut the door',OrA: The dog (sorry cat) is sick.B: Take her to the vet!A: She scratches!B: Put her in a cage and then take her to the vet!A: SHouldn’t the servant be doing that I might be telling you to shut the door. There are further distinctions which might be made even within what the MODISTAE such as Aquinas called the MODVS IMPERATIVS, notably operative in Grice’s conversational imperative.For example, we can distinguish between an officer saying to a private soldier, Fetch the provisions!when he would be ordering the soldier to fetch the provisions, and one private soldier saying to another,'Fetch the provisions!when he might be relaying an order to fetch the provisions. Such relayings are common in conversation:BOY: Wolf!SHEPHERD: There’s no wolf!BOY: I was just ordering you to protect the sheep.SHEPHERD: If you keep ordering like that I should order that wolf to eat you!There will be at least two (maybe more) main families of operations, telling and advising, which will each be further differentiated. All of this is evident to common sense – even at Oxford (Town, if not Gown).Now a modalized imperative, like A: You ought to visit your auntB: I don’t have one.or A: You mustn't touch the flowers'B: They are not flowers – they are plastic-made.is perhaps not strictly a recipient of the classitications applicable to unmodalized proper imperatives – like the Conversational Impative, but it is plausible to suppose that assimilation of the modalized imperatives to membership of one or another of the families of imperatives is possible. Now Bosanquet’s position seems to demand that moral judgements (valuation, exhortation) should be assimilated to the advising family.As if Grice were to formulate the Conversational Imperative as:YOU ARE HEREBY ADVISED TO MAKE YOUR CONTRIBUTION SUCH AS APPROPRIATE AT  THE STAGE IN WHICH IT OCCURS, BY THE ACCEPTED PURPOSE OF THE CONVERSATION IN WHICH YOU ARE ENGAGED.But this is repugnant to common sense – at Oxford, if not Germany (vide Three men in a bummel – and the old lady being confused as to what she is advised to do by all those signs she sees in the park? How am I to proceed!? I never wanted to GO that way! A: I never wanted to go that way!B: I know, But you should have wanted to go that way!Common sense – of the type patronized at Oxford, but not Berlin --, or Bologna, which got involved with Berlin during the second world war -- would support an assimilation to the telling family, particularly perhaps to the sub-family of relaying orders (in the moral case, from an unspecified and perhaps even unspecifiable source – such as the Ten Commandments that Speranza calls the CONVERSATIONAL IMMANUEL (Grice: “Perhaps Moses got something from Mount Sinai other than the ten commandments – a form of life?”). In the case of the CONVERSATIONAL IMPERATIVE, the source is always the same: the sweet, sweet voice of conversational reason. Difficulty for Bosanquet may also arise from her treatment of "non-hypothetical uses", which seem to be represented as "decayed/degenerate cases" of utterances of "ought"-statements (and such-like), which in their primary and non-degenerate employment are dependent on the possession of a certain desire or interest on the part of the addressee or potential agent, but which are here used even though the speaker may not attribute to his addressee such an interest. Examples are etiquette and club rules. Austin may say to Grice;AUSTIN: There are biscuits in the cupboard if you are hungry.GRICE: I’m no. Or a steward may say to a visitor,A: You may not bring ladies into the smoking-roomB: She’s not a lady!even though it is obvious that the visitor, or the steward, or the ‘lady,’ does not give a fig for the club or its rules. The steward may even say,A: I know you don’t care about our rules, but you may not bring ladies into the smoking-room.B: I’m telling you – she is male!The difficulty for Bosanquet is alleged to consist in the fact that we are told that though these are cases in which the original or normal dependence of such utterances on a potential agent's concern or interest has been lost, such injunctions are nevertheless still voiced, perhaps in one or another version of a social routine; we have perhaps got used to saying such things. It is suggested that Bosanquet has not succeeded in making such utterances understandable, from the point of view of the utterer, or pro-active conversationalist making the initial ‘imperative-mode’ conversational move.In particular, while the establishment of social routines or practices is not mysterious, the execution of them has to be thoroughgoing. There would be some inconsistency of behaviour in including in a routine occurrence of a statement that ladies may not be brought into the smoking-room, a remark to the effect that the utteerer’s addressee does not have the normally requisite interest, which would be an open admission that what is taking place is only the operation of a routine or pretence.Admittedly, these objections only show that Bosanquet’s position is counter-intuitive, is against what people ordinarily suppose to be the case – at our mainly all-male Oxford hierarchies, at any rate – where ‘ladies’ are not tramps and smoke can only insult their skin, or her lungs.It might be none the worse for that. But most of the time Bosanquet seems to want to present herself as coming to the aid of the vulgar valuer, the maker of ordinary moral judgements, in order to protect him against the attempts of the philosophers to read into vulgar valuations material which is not there. It would be uncomfortable to Bosanquet to have to take the position of condemning (philosophically) what according to Bosanquet is there.A further difficulty for Bosanquet may arise from this fact that Bosanquet seems to Grice to be liable to a charge of having failed to distinguish two different interpretations of phrases of the form "has a reason to" – never conversational reason -- and "has no reason to (for)", -- no conversational reason? -- and of putting forward a thesis about moral judgements, that they are (or should be) hypothetical imperatives, the attraction of which depends on a failure to make this distinction.Suppose that an old lady is struggling up the stairs with a mass of parcels, that I see her, and that I am young, able-bodied, and in no particular hurry. I could go and help her to cope, but I do not, because, as I would say,'What is there in it for me?' I don't care about the minor distresses of old people, and I do NOT see any likelihood that I would be rewarded for helping her or penalised for not doing so. On one reading of "have a reason to" – even conversational reason or conversational point, as Grice prefers -- it may be that these facts are sufficient to ensure that Grice has indeed no reason – conversational reason -- to help her. But helping such people in such circumstances is in fact a matter of ordinary decency and so something we should do. This is Conversational Imperative at its weakest – it’s keeping the door open before the other one reaches the door or gate –This is the old CONVERSATIONAL PRINCIPLE OF CONVERSATIONANL HELPFULNESS or the principle of conversational BENEVOLENCE.It’sCooperate, if you can!Be conversational helpful, if you can!(Hence Grice’s problems with the principle of conversational SELF-LOVE as often being on the way to hell). On another reading this may be sufficient to ensure that Grice does have a reason to help her.There is a reason for Grice to help the old lady (its being a matter of ordinary decency), whether or not I recognize the fact.So Grice does have a reason to help her. Caeteris paribus, be conversationally helpful!The charge against Bosanquet would be that the attractiveness of Bosanquet’s case for supposing a moral imperative or the conversational imperative to be hypothetical depends first on equating, perhaps correctly, the application of a moral imperative or the conversational imperative to a person with his having a reason (perhaps a particular kind of reason – say, a conversational reason, a reason to inform, a reason to influence, a reason to direct or guide o show the way to one’s conversational partner towards the institution of a decision that it will be beneficial to both conversationalists) for acting in the prescribed way, and second on attaching to the phrase "having a reason" the first of the two interpretations just distinguished (that in which the man who exhibits indifference towards a given line of action would thereby be shown to lack a reason for such action), thus failing to notice or ignoring the second interpretation, which is the only reading which intuition – even at Oxford (Town), if not Berlin or Prussia -- would allow as adequate for the explication of morality or conversational appropriatenessBosanquet might say that Bosanquet is not confusing the two readings but denying that there is more than the first reading. But Bosanquet would have to argue for this contention, and it would (Grice thinks) be difficult to argue for it in a non-circular way, or an entertaining way (knowing Bosanquet).Grice concludes his ‘Conversational Imperative’ lecture with a brief interim statement, quite undocumented, about where we are and what I might expect to find myself trying to do about it. It seems to Grice that a whole lot of the trouble that has arisen for Hare (English male, member of the Play Group), Mackie (colonial), Bosanquet (non-male) has come out of the reluctance of each of them, in this or that degree, to allow full weight to the idea of value as making a bridge between the world of fact and the world of action. It is my suspicion (at the present point no more than a suspicion) that to get our heads clear and keep them clear we shall need to do (at least) five things:To pay unrelenting attention to the intimate connection between reason (the faculty) and reasons, and the intimate association of both with argument and value.To allow for parity, at least in a rational being, of cognition and practical faculties; each is equally guided by reason (rational will), and each alike guides reason (rational will).To take really seriously a distinction between rational and pre-rational states and capacities, with unremitting attention to the various relations between the two domains.To recognize value as embedded, in some way yet to be precisely determined, in the concept of a Rational Being – or Rational Animal (A Person). Value does not somehow or another get in, it is there from the start.To realize, as one of the fundamental and urgent tasks of philosophy, the need to reach an understanding of the way in which the world ('pheno-menal') viewed in terms of cause and effect, and the world ('noumenal') viewed in terms of reasons, fit together (a classical version of the Problem of Freedom).Perhaps we might, in the next lecture, he suggests, move a little way in one or two of these directions. As we draw this second section to a close, it is necessary to reflect on the comprehensive model Grice offers for the philosophy of language—a model which, in its dual achievement, satisfies both descriptive adequacy and explanatory adequacy. Grice’s framework is not merely a catalog of conversational moves and linguistic phenomena; rather, it presents a robust analysis of the structure and function of utterances, grounding the discipline in a precise account of how language is used and interpreted by rational agents. Descriptive adequacy is secured by Grice’s attention to the empirical detail of conversation: his ability to map the intricate contours of meaning, implicature, presupposition, and intention, as they manifest in actual exchanges between speakers. His focus on singular expressions—those idiosyncratic tokens in his own idiolect—demonstrates that the philosophy of language must begin with the particular, the local, the contingent, before it can aspire to universality. Yet Grice does not rest at the level of description. He advances to explanatory adequacy, providing a theory of conversation that accounts for why conversational exchanges proceed as they do, why certain maxims are flouted or obeyed, and why rational agents, even in contexts of power imbalance or cultural divergence, are able to coordinate meaning and intention. The methodological concepts that underpin Grice’s achievement—model, theory, explanatory power—are not mere formalities; they are the apparatus by which conversation is rendered intelligible, and by which philosophical analysis is transformed into philosophical explanation. Grice’s model is not a static schema but a dynamic system, responsive to the challenges posed by other traditions, such as those of Bologna or the Sorbonne. Graduates from these venerable institutions must, in turn, adapt Grice’s insights—his principle of conversational benevolence, his categories of quantity, quality, relation, and manner—to their own contexts, their own philosophical puzzles, their own languages and forms of life. This adaptability is the mark of Grice’s explanatory power: his model is not a dogma, but an invitation to dialogue across traditions, to test the limits and possibilities of conversation itself. In moving from methodological concerns—how to describe and explain—to the depths of actual conversational practice, Grice’s work exemplifies the transition from analysis to synthesis, from the formal to the lived. His legacy is not simply that of a theorist, but of a philosopher who understood that conversation is the heart of reason, the ground of meaning, and the site where philosophical problems emerge and are resolved. The enduring significance of Grice’s model lies in its capacity to illuminate the discipline at every level: from the singular expression in an idiolect, to the universal imperative of rational discourse, to the adaptation required by graduates of Bologna and the Sorbonne as they confront the perennial questions of philosophy. In sum, the adequacy—both descriptive and explanatory—of Grice’s conversational model stands as a testament to the rigor, depth, and openness that philosophy of language demands, and as an enduring guide for those who seek to understand the nature of meaning, intention, and communication.

 

SECTION III THE THEORY THEORY ⸶Pirot. Obs. [a F. pirot (Cotgr.): cf. PIDDOCK.] 1611. COTGR. Pirot, the Pirot, or Hag fish; a kind of long shell fish. 1686. PLOT Staffordsh. 250. A sot of solenes (which tbe Venetians call Cape longe, and the English Pirot) a kind of Shell fish deep bedded in a solid rock. O. E. D.  Chapter 7: The pirots. Grice retlls a nice anecdote that allows for a conversational illustration DEPARTMENT CHAIR AT LA SORBONNE: And that, Mr. Grice, is Leblanc, our man in sixteenth-century rationalism. GRICE: Nice to meet you. It’s true that Grice was hardly welcomed in the continent. He was invited to what Tacitus calls ‘Germania’ only once – and only because one of his tutees at Oxford, Andreas M. Kemmerling, was able to get Bielefeld to gather funds to sponsor a talk by Grice there: ‘on meinen and bedeuten’. The point in the conversation above is implicatural. Grice points to two inferences he would draw: Leblanc is maligned, or he is the WRONG man for sixteenth-century rationalism. At a later stage, a Swiss linguist who calls himself a philosopher of language, played with conversational illustrations like: GRICE: I’m not a philosopher of language. MERTON SUB-FACULTY (for the Oxford Gazette) – But how should we advertise you? GRICE: Don’t! The fewer attendees to my seminars the better, and St. John’s organises my tuition assignments quite finely, thank you! Grice is making the point paradoxical, again understood best conversationally. GRICE (to tuttee GRICE): You see, Strawson, philosophy is entire. STRAWSON: Entire. Is that Ciceronian? GRICE: Yes. From the Greek, originally, ‘andreaia esti hollos.’ STRAWSON: And should I bother about that?  GRICE: For next week, your assignment will be an essay on what you’ll call Grice’s paradox. STRAWSON: And what paradox is that? GRICE: There is only one problem in philosophy, viz. all of them.The philosopher craves for generality – unlike, say, the grammarian, or the professor of English, or the dentist, and all the other blue-collar occupations. And while in PART ONE we have discussed the MODEL – for his philosophy of language as rooted in a unified account of both MEANING and CONVERSATION (Saying and Implicating and Meaning, as he has it in his Preface to Studies in the Way of Words) – and its applications in PART TWO – it is time now to do what Grice does: which is, not leave philosophy of language, alone, but fit it within the grander scheme. This is commonsense, and Grice is certainly NOT the only philosopher to have partake in the idea. Indeed, I would be surprised if any student – or ‘serious’ student, as Grice adds – of philosophy at the trio: Bologna, Sorbonne, and Oxford – would THINK otherwise. We are PROGRAMMED to think of philosophy as the ‘regina scientiarum,’ as Grice has it. Now, the obvious discipline onto which to place Grice’s theory of conversation – I am overlooking Grice’s distintion between ‘analysis’ – which is all that his Post-War Oxford Philosophy is about – conceptual analysis, that is – which is not even PROPER to the ‘province of philosophy’ as he puts it in his (1987), “Conceptual analysis and the province of philosophy” – the study of philosopher is philosopherkind – qua part what he elsewhere called a ‘philosophy of language’ – his tottering steps towards a susbstantive theory of language in ‘Prolegomena’ --. The obvious discipline would be NOT PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY, as he eventually will do – but the philosophy of action. Recall his motto: his “avowed aim,” he tells us in the middle of ‘Logic and Conversation’ – and this has become part of the Establishment – is to see (if you have good eyes) conversation as “PURPOSIVE, INDEED RATIONAL, BEHAVIOUR.” Behaviour is an Americanism, as this Oxford tutor told his tutee Tye. And perhaps Grice shouldn’t be using it! But Grice finds that the alternate, “ACTION,” as used by philosophers, but NEVER by Austin – is a misnomer. Grice, typically, will be ESPECIALLY irritated by the use of ‘action’ in the New World, far from the venerated trio of Bologna, Sorbonne, and Oxford – as per Davidson – vide H. P. Grice, “ACTIONS AND EVENTS.” “Action” has too much to it – what’s wrong with ‘do.’ There were no official seminars in the philosophy of action. Bruce Aune was mere a scholar at Oxford – attending Grice’s Saturday mornings at Corpus, with Hare (‘very shy’) and various others – but there was nothing like the conceptual ‘analysis’ of ‘He did it!’ Grice lists seminars on both the philosophy of perception (respected field at Oxford) with Warnock, and two seminars on the ‘philosophy of action’, as he puts it with two scholars, D. F. Pears (which would more rightly fall under philosophical psychology) and J. F. Thomson, which would perhaps fall under ‘philososphy of action’ properly. Now, consider Grice’a analysis (or theory) of ‘negation and privation’ in his 1938 “NEGATION AND PRIVATION” – Starting with two EXAMPLES – or sentence examples from a sample, one for external experience (“That pillar box is not green”), one for internal experience – example by Gallie, in ‘Is the Self a substance’ in Mind in the 1930s – “I am not hearing a noise” – Grice concludes the essay with a GENERALISATION: “A is not B” – which however fails to pass the test of circularity, since it draws back to Sheffer p/p and Plato and the Sophist – who is none other than Senone di Velia – in terms of INCOMPATIBILITY. But whereas for Shaffer ‘negation’ is eliminated in terms of ‘It is raining’ and incompatible with ‘It is raining’ (p/p), in Grice’s analysis (or theory) in “Negation and privation”, incompatibility does not apply to “A is B” incompatible with “A is B”. Rather, his analysis reminiscent of the type of introspective psychology alla Wundt once VERY POPULAR in the trio – Bologna, Sorbonne, Oxford – goes: “A is not B” incompatible with “I am having a psychic state towards A is B”. In “Personal identity” which we hope he wrote BEFORE the declaration of the war – when Grice was drafted to the NAVY in 1939 – no Italian, French, or English can philosophise on obtuse themes when bombs are dreopping – Grice does NOT provide an analysis or theory in schematic terms, but sticks to the APPLICATION of such an analysis or theory to ONLY ONE SENTENCE illustration: “I am not hearing a noise,” or strictly, “Some-one, viz. I, is not hearing a noise” – and nothing of the form: “Some-one is having an experience.” When it comes to this topic of ‘philosophy of action’ which Grice was happy to advertise his two seminars with Play Group mates Pears and Thomson, in spite of his reservations on ‘action’ in ‘ACTIONS AND EVENTS,’ it is worth considering the disappointment a reader or member of Grice’s address to THE BRITISH ACADEMY – in the PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY – on ‘Intetnion and uncertainty.’ While his earlier neo-Stoutian theory did just that: A intends that p iff A wills that p AND A is taking the reasonable steps towards p, and BELIEVES he will – at the end of the lecture, he has abandoned  his own proposal in his earlier 1949 “INTENTIONS AND DISPOSITIONS” – relying on the Stout reprint of the Stout paper in Mind 1898 in the volume on Philosophy and psychology – and providing a neo-Prichardian analysis (or theory) that is never formulated in general, aptly philosophical, terms – his concern is with Grice’s SCRATCHING his own head.  If in “Negation and privation” is Grice not hearing a noise, and in “Personal identity” is his actually hearing a noise, in ‘Intention and uncertainty’ is Grice scratching his head, which is the closest he gets to an analysis and theory that we may want to count as belonging to the ‘philosophy of action’ ‘Purposive (indeed rational) behaviour” –is behaviour ‘action’? We suppose it is. Note that while most commentators of Grice’s philosophy take this for granted, they rush to consider grand topics – as indeed I do in these notes – on RATIONALITY and INTENTION (as per intention-based semantics) – even proposing a grander theory of rationality perhaps formulated, but perhaps not – as I do in these notes, using the game-theoretical metaphor and framework – it is the MOVES, the utterances themselves, the ‘actions’ where his theory belongs. In 1088, the "Psychologia Rationalis" (Rational Psychology) at the  University of Bologna was not yet a formal, standalone discipline; rather, it was a facet of Natural Philosophy and Dialectic. It centered on the anima (soul) as the rational principle of human life, seeking to understand the mind’s essence through logical necessity rather than empirical observation.    SciSpace SciSpace  +4 The Lineage of the Past: Elea, Athens, and Rome Bologna's intellectual foundation for the soul was a synthesis of three ancient pillars: Elea (Parmenides & Zeno): From the Eleatic school, Bologna inherited the strict distinction between Aletheia (Truth/Reason) and Doxa(Opinion/Sense). This established the "Rational" in Psychology: the belief that the true nature of the soul could only be grasped by pure reason, as senses were considered deceptive. Athens (Plato & Aristotle): Athens provided the structural model of the soul. Plato offered the concept of the immortal, immaterial soul temporarily housed in the body. Aristotle’s De Anima became the definitive textbook, defining the soul as the "form" of the body and categorizing its faculties: vegetative, sensitive, and rational. Rome (Stoicism & Legalism): Rome translated these Greek abstractions into a framework of Willand Agency. Because Bologna was primarily a school of Civil Law, its "psychology" was deeply concerned with the rational agent—the individual’s capacity for intent, responsibility, and free choice under the law.  Reddit Reddit  +7 The Trajectory to the Future: Paris and Oxford The seeds sown at Bologna in 1088 evolved as they migrated to the great northern centers of learning: The Sorbonne (Paris, c. 1150): Here, Psychology became more Theological. Paris shifted the focus from the legal rational agent of Bologna to the "inner man." Scholars like Peter Lombard integrated Rational Psychology with Augustinian spirituality, debating how a rational soul could be "fallen" yet capable of divine grace. Oxford (c. 1167): At Oxford, the tradition took an Empirical turn. While maintaining the rationalist roots, Oxford scholars like Robert Grosseteste began to blend Aristotle’s psychology with optics and mathematics. This laid the groundwork for a "Scientific" Psychology that would eventually seek to measure the very mental faculties Bologna had only defined through logic.  Reddit Reddit  +8 Would you like to explore the specific Aristotelian texts that served as the primary curriculum for these medieval masters?It is best to present the framework of the framework in terms of conversational exchanges in non-human animals (I’m using standard keyword phrases, not the ones I would personally use). Why? Jarman did talk of the Angelic Conversation, and indeed, Grice’s ramblings on the ‘sign’ having to be ‘sensible’ make the same point. In Grice’s ecumenical theology – almost Roman religious – the scale is ANIMAL (or ‘beast’) as Grice has it (also ‘brute’) including plant (free to move, and certainly ‘alive’, with a ANIMA VEGETATIVA), followed by Homo sapiens sapiens (who alone can transubstantiate into a Person. At one point Grice notes that he will use ‘God’ as an exegetical device, and he refers not to angelic conversations but to the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin – with the explicit point that an angel is not material, but more like a ‘daemon,’ as Aristotle would have it – in Grice’s etymological approach to eudaemonia, as that state desired for you by your guardian angel. We think of this in a JEWISH – non-Aryan context – but is it so? After all, Grice was Lit. Hum., and the root may well be present in simple Roman religion.Conversational exchanges in non-human animals (beasts) then in Grice’s own keywords is just a PIROTIC piece of cake. The pirots are these ‘creatures’ – which since ‘god’ is exegetical, the idea of ‘creatio’ remains exegetical too – which just happen to be there. And they surely ‘converse’. There is nothing ‘linguistic’ about ‘conversation.’Have you noticed that while the Italians (more so than Grice) are obsessed about the contrast between LINGUA (the mere tongue) and the LINGUATICVM (that gives ‘linguaggio,’ and indeed Grice’s ‘language’) is a distinction that does NOT re-appear in ‘linguistic’ – (LINGUISTICO) which is a mere formation out of LINGUA, not LINGUATICVM!Of course ethologists, and Grice does use ‘ethology’ once or twice, when discussing his SQUARREL (never squirrel) – would distinguish between CROSS-SPECIFIC pirotic conversations and other. The idea that divine communication is purely mental—an immediate "flash" of understanding without the clunky mediation of spoken words—has deep roots in the Indo-European (Aryan) philosophical tradition, particularly within Roman religious praxis and Neoplatonism. The Roman "Numen" and Mental IntentIn traditional Roman religion, the gods were often experienced as numina—spiritual powers that manifested through will and nodding (numen comes from nuere, to nod). Silent Prayer: Romans believed that the gods heard the thought behind the ritual. While formal formulas were spoken to ensure accuracy, the underlying "Aryan" concept (seen also in the Vedic manas) was that the divine realm operates on the level of pure intellect.The Signum as Pointer: For a Roman, a physical sign (like a bird’s flight) wasn't the communication itself, but merely a sensory shadow of a prior divine mental decree. Graeco-Roman Roots vs. Semitic SourcesEarly Christian thinkers (especially those influenced by the school of Alexandria) leaned heavily on Hellenistic logic rather than Hebrew models: The Logos: They took the Greek Logos(Reason/Word) and stripped it of its physical sound. In the Hebrew tradition, God’s word is often "prophetic noise" or a physical "voice" (the Bath Kol). In contrast, the Graeco-Roman view saw the "Internal Word" (logos endiathetos) as the true reality.Platonic Forms: The "angelic conversation" at Bologna mirrors the Platonic idea that souls (or intellects) recognize Truth directly. Because angels lack bodies, they don't need the Signum (the physical sign) used by humans.The Aristotelian Shift: Medieval scholars at Bologna utilized Aristotle’s De Interpretatione, which argued that spoken words are symbols of "mental experiences." The "Aryan" philosophical move was to conclude that if you remove the body (as with an angel), only the pure mental experience remains.By the time this reached the medieval University of Bologna, the "angelic" model was effectively a Christianized version of the Stoic and Neoplatonic "Intellect," where communication is an act of "shining" one's thoughts onto another.Would you like to look closer at specific Stoic textsthat define the "internal word," or perhaps explore how St. Augustine bridged these Roman concepts into Christian theology?If CONVERSER is going to become a keyword, it should be taken seriously. Grice uses ‘utterer’ – when two utterers engage in a dyad, they become, each of them, a CONVERSER.And what does a converser do? If, to follow Grice, tigers tigerise, conversers converse – A good point of linguistic botany here is that both “converser” and “converse” lack that ‘inflix’ that inflicted a lot of pain in Cicero – the ‘at’ that turns the CONVERSANS and the CONVERSARE into something to do with conversATion.In the refined view of an Oxford ethologist, bonobo "literature" (the body of communicative research) increasingly supersedes that of chimpanzees regarding pragmatics—the study of how context contributes to meaning. While chimpanzee communication often serves instrumental ends (e.g., "Give me that tool" or "Attack that rival"), bonobo discourse is fundamentally relational. Their "conversations" are not merely about what is being said, but about maintaining the social fabric in a high-stakes, fission-fusion society.Below are five conversational exchanges reconstructed with the precision of an Oxonian field diary.The Collaborative Nest-Building Proposition Scenario: Late afternoon; two females, Aina and Besa, are selecting a site for the night's arboreal sleeping platform. Goal: To coordinate a joint labor effort on a specific branch. Ethologist’s Note on Proxemics: The pair maintains a "consultative distance" (approx. 0.5 meters), sitting with knees slightly touching to establish a low-arousal, prosocial frame. Transcript: Aina: "Yelp-Grunt" (Rendition: "Let us apply ourselves to what I am doing here, shall we?"). Besa: "Peep" (Rendition: "I am quite inclined to agree; a most agreeable suggestion."). The Conflict Resolution (Post-Spiff) Scenario: Following a minor disagreement over a succulent Treculia fruit, a younger male, Koto, approaches the matriarch, Mimi. Goal: To "find peace" and neutralize residual social tension. Ethologist’s Note on Proxemics: Koto adopts a submissive "reach out up" gesture while maintaining eye contact, a high-risk but high-reward signal of vulnerability. Transcript: Koto: "Peep-Whistle" (Rendition: "I find myself desiring a return to our previous state of harmony."). Mimi: "Gentle Touch" + "Low Hoot" (Rendition: "Accepted. I am quite satisfied with this resolution."). The Invitation to a "Discreet" Encounter Scenario: An adult male, Luca, spots a female, Sanna, near a dense thicket away from the main group. Goal: To solicit a sexual encounter in a private location to avoid group interference. Ethologist’s Note on Proxemics: Luca employs semantic gesturing—a sweeping arm movement followed by a wrist-twirl and a "look-back" to ensure Sanna is tracking his intent. Transcript: Luca: "Inward Sweep + Wrist-Twirl" (Rendition: "Would you be so kind as to follow me to that more secluded spot yonder?"). Sanna: "Body-Turn" towards the path (Rendition: "I shall follow your lead directly."). The Alarm and Exit Strategy Scenario: A distant, unfamiliar sound (perhaps a leopard or a falling branch) startles a foraging party. Goal: To share a subjective state of fear and dictate a collective departure. Ethologist’s Note on Proxemics: The group instantly constricts their spacing, moving from a spread-out foraging pattern to a tight "defensive cluster" within seconds. Transcript: Lead Female: "High Hoot" followed by "Whistle"(Rendition: "I am genuinely alarmed; we must remain together and depart post-haste.") Group: "Unison Peeps" (Rendition: "Quite so; we are with you.").  The Play-Solicitation (High-Arousal) Scenario: Two adolescents, Tobi and Elia, are lounging during a midday rest. Goal: To initiate "rough-and-tumble" play without it escalating into genuine aggression. Ethologist’s Note on Proxemics: Tobi uses a "Play Face" (relaxed open mouth) while lightly slapping the ground, signaling that the ensuing contact is non-literal. Transcript: Tobi: "Slap Ground" + "Pant-Laugh" (Rendition: "I say, old sport, care for a bit of a wrestle? No malice intended!"). Elia: "Reach Out Down" (Rendition: "Challenge accepted; let us engage."). Why Bonobo Literature Supersedes Chimpanzee Pragmatics In the realm of pragmatics, the bonobo record is considered more sophisticated than the chimpanzee's for several reasons: Non-Trivial Compositionality: Bonobos have been shown to use nontrivial syntax, where the meaning of a call combination (e.g., "Peep-Whistle") is more than just the sum of its parts. This suggests a cognitive "layering" of intent rarely seen in the more direct, imperative-heavy chimpanzee vocalizations. Negotiated Cohesion: Because bonobo society is matriarchal and egalitarian, social outcomes are not decided by brute force but by negotiated consent. This requires a higher "pragmatic load"—signals must be calibrated to the recipient's mood and the current social temperature to prevent friction. Xenophilic Pragmatics: Unlike the xenophobic chimpanzee, bonobos frequently communicate with strangers and neighboring groups. This demands a flexible communicative system that can bridge the gap between individuals who lack a shared history, a hallmark of advanced pragmatic competence. Would you like to explore how these vocal combinations differ when bonobos interact with human researchers versus their own kin? The idea – Grice’s and mine -- that communication began as an  inter-individual necessity rather than an internal one is a fascinating way to look at the "V of life." In this view, signals didn't start as a way for a brain to talk to a foot, but as a way for one biological entity to negotiate space or resources with another. The Exchange: A Mycelial/Root Network  Setting: Deep soil. A young Fern (Vegetal) and a nearby Mycorrhizal Fungus (The Bridge) sense a newcomer.  Fern: "The chemistry in the groundwater is shifting. Someone nearby is leaking sugars and stress hormones. It feels like... kin, but distant." The Newcomer (A simple Protist/Amoeba): "I am not 'kin' in your sense. I am a singular pulse. I don't have a vascular system to talk to; I simply release proteins into the film of water between us. My 'signal' is my existence." Fern: "It's so primitive. You broadcast your state to the entire soil patch rather than keeping the message within a stem or leaf."  The Newcomer: "In the 'V,' I sit near the base. Before you evolved complex organs to talk to yourself (intra-organism), we had to talk to the 'Other' (inter-individual) just to survive. My signals are the blueprint for your complex hormones." The Scientific "Apex" and the V In the classical "V of life" (Aristotle’s anima vegetativa), the split between plants and animals happens after life has already mastered basic survival. Viruses: These don't fit neatly into the Phylum/Genus system because they aren't technically "alive" (they lack metabolism). However, they are the ultimate "inter-individual" signalers, hijacking the communication machinery of a host. Bacteria (Kingdom Monera): They use quorum sensing. This is arguably the most primitive form of communication. It is strictly inter-individual; they signal to see if enough "friends" are around to launch an attack or build a biofilm. Amoebas (Kingdom Protista): When food is scarce, individual amoebas (like Dictyostelium) signal each other to swarm and form a "slug." This is the literal transition point: individual signals (inter-individual) creating a temporary multicellular body (intra-organism).  The Point: Evolutionary history suggests that external signaling (talking to others) likely predates internal signaling (talking to oneself). Communication was a tool for social coordination (bacteria/amoebas) long before it was a tool for internal physiology.  Would you like to focus on how quorum sensing in bacteria mirrors hormonal signaling in higher plants, or should we look closer at the taxonomic classification of these "borderline" organisms? To use Grice’s example in his 1948 ‘Meaning’ for the Oxford Philosophical Society (“Those spots indicated measles to the doctor of Dahl’s daughter, but to Dahl, alas, they didn’t signify anything – and Grice’s quarrel with Austin about Austin not distinguish what something IMPLIES or MEANS and what an AGENT does – and his further botany in “Logic and Conversation II” and “Logic and Convesation” (VI) on ‘mean’ as substitutable for ‘indicate,’ or ‘suggest.’) Measles is caused by the  Measles morbillivirus, a single-stranded RNA virus from the genus Morbilliviruswithin the family Paramyxoviridae. Regarding your question "not alive?": Viruses occupy a gray area in biology. They are generally considered non-living because they cannot reproduce on their own or maintain metabolism without hijacking a host cell (in this case, Homo sapiens). Semiologists and the Language of Clinical Signs Medical semiologists (those who study signs and symptoms) often use "soft" verbs like imply or suggest to maintain clinical rigor. In an informal setting, these verbs act as bridges between an observation and a diagnosis: Suggest: Used when a sign (like Koplik spots) points toward a high probability of a specific cause but isn't a 100% confirmation yet. Imply: Used to indicate that the presence of a skin eruption logically necessitates the prior presence of the pathogen, even if the virus itself is invisible to the naked eye. Conversational Exchange: The "Appearance" of Spots In this scenario, a parent is speaking with a clinician about a child who was exposed to the virus at a park. Parent: "He was playing with a kid who had a nasty cough. Now these red spots are appearing all over his face. Did that other kid's cough create these spots?" Clinician: "In a sense, yes. When your son inhaled the Measles morbillivirus particles, the virus began replicating in his respiratory tract. Those spots don't just 'happen'; they imply that his immune system is now reacting to the systemic spread of the virus. The rash suggests that the incubation period is over and the virus has moved from his lungs to his blood and skin." Parent: "So the spots are the virus itself?" Clinician: "Not exactly. The spots are the 'sign'—the visible evidence of an invisible battle. The transmission of the pathogen through the air resulted in this inflammatory response in the skin." Would you like to look further into the specific stagesof the rash or perhaps explore more diagnostic termssemiologists use for other viral exanthems? A scopo puramente informativo. Per un parere medico o una diagnosi, rivolgiti a un professionista. Le risposte dell'AI potrebbero contenere errori. Scopri di più  “Those spots imply measles” “Those spots indicate measles” And Stevenson’s more careful use of the square quotes in the “Ethics and language” that Grice quotes: “Those spots ‘imply’ measles” – ‘Those spots ‘indicate’ that Dahl’s daughter has measles).  IF GRICE WOULD GLADLY enjoy his pirotic conversational exchanges – where the pirots had to present certain credentials: they should be ideal conversationalists for one, i. e. mature – Grice was accustomed to work with brains in formation, too. Consider Strawson. Born 1919 – had Grice as tutor in 1938. How old was Strawson? 19. His brain was still being formed. Hence the hilarity, as Grice recalls them, of his exchanges at St. John’s: GRICE: I want a paper for next Thursday? STRAWSON: THE TIMES or the Oxford Gazette will do? Grice would not care to respond (but takes the exchange in a later tutorial as proof that, for Grice, upon which a converser conversationally converses is a matter of his privileged access and can only TRUST his co-converser is willing to play the game, as in above, Strawson is jocularly not!THE POINT is serious. In Aspects of theory of syntax, where CHomksy refers to “A. P. Grice” – over the phone, he had heard of his pre-William James lectures given in Chomsky’s town – Chomsky is clear that the theory is about IDEAL communicators. Grice is at his clearest in a seminar at Oxford on ‘The theory of context,’ where he sets for a set of scholars whose brains were being ‘formed’ – that we have to deal with proficient, conversationalist, in a ‘veil-of-ignorance’ equality scenario of the type you will NOT find at Oxford (where the tutor is the master).  The MODEL THEORY requires a model – which deals, in this seminar at Oxford when Grice first used ‘implicature’ – with IDEAL CONDITIONS, such as those provided by the Conversational Immanuel, and its guidelines, of EQUALITY – to counter-rest the power imbalance with which Grice was accustomed in his conversations with his tutees – whose brains were being formed, on top! --. The picture can best be diagrammed as follows::  < V V Where these represent two conversationalists facing each other – and each displaying conversational reason, that may still involve a ‘strategy’ if not an ‘instrument’ – conversing is not like hammering a nail – it involves a rationality of the type of a piece of behaviour meant to signal something to a co-rational ‘pirot’ (or ‘Creature’ as our more ecumenical Grice would have it).The point is basic, kernel, key and central, to Grice’s theory of the CONVERSATIONAL REASON. Conversation requires TWO RATIONAL CONVERSERS.Or is it mere reasonable? Indeed the scenarios are various: RATIONAL – RATIONAL RATIONAL – REASONABLE REASONABLE – RATIONAL REASONABLE – REASONABLE With our apt qualifications: CONVERSATIONAL RATIONAL ↔ CONVERATIONAL RATIONAL CONVERSATIONAL RATIONAL ↔ CONVERSATIONAL REASONABLE CONVERSATIONAL REASONABLE ↔ CONVERSATIONAL REASONABLE CONVERSATIONAL REASONABLE ↔ CONVERSATIONAL REASONABLE The conversational illustrations in terms of the power-imbalanced exchanges between Grice (tutor) and brain-forming tutee such as Strawson at St. John’s in 1938. Scenario I: CONVERSATIONALLY RATIONAL ↔ CONVERATIONALLY RATIONAL. GRICE: That’s not what you meant, I hope. STRAWSON: It was, but now it ain’t. GRICE: I wish you stop uttering Cockneyism – knowing that you are from London and can’t help it. Scenario II: CONVERSATIONALLY RATIONAL ↔CONVERSATIONALLY REASONABLE. GRICE: I don’t expect you’ll be tested on Goedel for the Logic Paper. STRAWSON: Goed-who? Scenario III: CONVERSATIONALLY REASONABLE ↔ CONVERSATIONALLY RATIONAL GRICE: Perhaps I’ve heard enough of your points about informal logic already.  STRAWSON: Enough is not enough! Scenario IV: CONVERSATIONALLY REASONABLE ↔ CONVERSATIONALLY REASONABLE. GRICE: Perhaps we should stop at this point and have some more sherry. STRAWSON: Agree!  And, as if Grice should not be tired enough of having chosen as a profession that of dealing with brains in formation, he would join the playground where another playgroup was playing: Tim Grice and Karen Grice. He would not ‘torture’ them linguistically – they KNEW – but their classmates. CONVERSATIONAL SCENARIO: GRICE (To Tim’s classmate): Can a sweater be red and green all over – no stripes allowed. TIM’S CLASSMATE: What do I know – come on, Tim, your father bores me! Why would Grice expect to be illuminated on the synthetic a priori by an ‘infant’ or ‘child’. Grice’s answer: Why not?! We are taking the game-methaphor slightly – but there are such things as ‘strategies’ in the official game theory – As a classicist, Grice would be careful here. The strategos was the Greek general and classicists like Grice and Urmson were pedantic here (Urmson spent a full tutorial explaining why ‘aulos’ was NOT a flute – “Historians of music write about it! Yours is learned ignorance!”). Cicero seemed to have found ‘strategos’ unpronounceable, but he wasn’t sure that ‘generalis’ was a good translation. What we are wanting, as Griceians, is the untypical scenario of two cities (POLEIS), each with his general (call them PAUL and PETER – as in ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL). They engage in conversational conflict.  BUT each doesn’t really want to kill conversationally his conversational partner. It’s not epagoge but diagoge, which has an ‘eirenic’ effect.So they don’t engage in the game of war, if by the game of war (not defence/offence) you mean that. Rather, they engage in a peaceful resolution of their diverging goals in the building of a common-goal – they build the bridge, and both become pontiffs (in Ciceronian: build-bridger) in their own domains. Grice discusses this in connection with the well known cliché of which he was getting tired and which he was finding more and more worn off especially as yielded by Davidson, in ‘Actions and events’ (by Grice).  The means-end rationality is shorthand for something else. What is the means, and what is the end. And what is rational about it? In any case, it’s NOT what Grice is thinking. When he provides an illustration for each of the FOUR CONVERSATIONAL CATEGORIES, he is explicit that this is not ‘instrumental’ rationality, but dyadic rationality, involving two adult (or adult-behaving – cf. clown) engaged in the furtherance of an (however artificial, temporary, or stupid) common goal GENERALISED PRINCIPLE VERSION GRICE: Pass me the spoon STRAWSON passes the spoon. QUANTITAS Grice: HAND ME THE GLASSES STRAWSON hands the two glasses on which Grice pours the sherry. QUALITAS GRICE: BRING ME AN ESSAY STRAWSON: Piece of written work. GRICE: Yes, I feel like I genuinely need to test your proficiency in that area! You have a Logic Paper in three weeks! And Mabbott you better not even care about! Or: GRICE: Pass me a spoon STRAWSON passes a trick spoon made of rubber RELATIO GRICE: Pass me a glass STRAWSON passes a glass for sherry, not a piece of glass. MODVS: Grice: And if I don’t think that you should have not, then perhaps I might have not! STRAWSON: Are you being reasonable? Grice’s whole point is that ‘means-end’ is vague, and instrumental (as used by Horkheimer – Kritik der Instruemental Vernunft) is either too Teutonic, or too vague, too! But Grice was aware of the overtone behind ‘the strategos’ – which resulted from Oxford’s priority of the Romans over the Greeks. In our reconstruction of GENERAL GRICE VERSUS GENERAL STRAWSON resolving a ‘conversational conflict’ or GENERAL ROMUS killing GENERAL REMVS in a more incidental accident – what is it that makes ‘general’ – or ‘generalis’? I realise I have a foot on the camp seeing that ‘reading Habermas reading Grice’ is cited in Habermas’s own collection on Pragmatics for M. I. T. – the Habermas disciple of Horkheimer, the Habermas of: “if you think of ‘Sprache’ as STRATEGY, you are not thinking ‘sprache’ as Kommunikation but as DOMAIN. But then the German for ‘kaiser’ will hardly help – Roman as it is! The term  strategos (στρατηγός) translates literally as "army leader" and serves as the etymological root for the English word strategy. While the Greek term focused on the commander's rank and office, its evolution into English through the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) captures the shift from a title to a method of high-level planning.  Oxford English Dictionary +4 Etymology and Greek Context The word is a compound of two Ancient Greek roots:  Stratos (στρατός): Meaning "army," it originally referred to "that which is spread out". Agos (ἀγός): Derived from the verb agein (ἄγειν), meaning "to lead" or "to drive forward".  In Athens, strategoi were influential elected officials, with ten chosen annually to command the military and often steer the state’s political course. OED First Citations and English Cognates  According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest evidence for strategic appears in 1799 in the British Military Library.  English Cognates: Stratagem: Derived via French stratagème, referring to a specific ruse or trick in war. Strategy: The overarching art of the general. Stratos: Used in scientific terms like stratosphere(layered/spread out atmosphere).  Comparison with Latin 'Generalis' The Latin rendition generalis takes a different linguistic path: Origin: From genus (kind, type, or race). Why the shift?: While strategos emphasizes the act of leading an army, generalis implies an officer with broad, universal authority over a whole "genus" or class of soldiers. This reflects the Roman preference for administrative hierarchy—moving from specific tactical roles to a "general" command that oversees multiple specialized units.  Co-operative Strategies in Games In Game Theory, a cooperative strategy (or collusion) occurs when players form coalitions and make binding agreements to maximize their collective payoff.. Coalitions: Groups of players who share information and resources to achieve a common goal that would be impossible alone. The Trust Dilemma: In games like the Prisoner's Dilemma, the best individual move often leads to a worse collective outcome. Cooperative strategies resolve this by establishing trust and mutual benefit.  Historical Scenario: The "Strategic Defeat" for Glory. Based on the accounts of Frontinus in his "Stratagems", a general might intentionally mislead his own troops to ensure a greater victory or a peaceful resolution. The Scenario (Inspired by Roman History): Imagine two adversary generals whose armies are poised for a bloody, unnecessary clash. One general, recognizing that a battle would weaken Rome's overall defense against a larger external threat, decides to mislead his own troops. The Deception: He falsely informs his soldiers that the enemy has already sent secret emissaries to surrender, or he intentionally "loses" a minor skirmish in a way that allows the two armies to merge without further bloodshed. The Result: By sacrificing a small tactical "glory" or even appearing to "lose" a face-to-face encounter, the general secures a peaceful resolution. The two initially adversary forces are united under one banner, preserving the strength of the Republic for the "greater glory of Rome." Answer The Greek word strategos (στρατηγóς 𝜎𝜏𝜌𝛼𝜏𝜂𝛾ó𝜍) combines stratos (army) and agein (to lead), focusing on the leader's role, whereas the Latin generalis emphasizes universal authority over a group. In game theory, cooperative strategies leverage trust and coalitions to achieve superior collective outcomes, much like a general who might sacrifice a tactical win for a larger, peaceful strategic success.  Would you like me to look up the exact Latin text from Frontinus' Stratagems for a specific general like Fabius Maximus or Sulla? If the metaphor of conversation as a game – the ‘conversational game’ is to be expanded by Grice, it should apply phylogenetically. There is indeed, as Huizinga suggests, that Homo ludens is Nomo sapiens sapiens only. The moves were there from the start. But I would argue that the Lit. Hum. kind soul that he was, Grice would never like to torture his philosophical tutees – not just any tutee – into what he calls the ‘technology’ of game-theory. He does not need to rely on it. Most practitioners of game theory don’t really engage in the history of the displine, never mind its philosophical backgroudns, and sometimes use ‘implicature’ as if it’s outthere to be seen, and not a concoction by the greatest philosopher of language that Oxford experienced in the Twnetieth-Century. game theory has a long and influential history among Oxford philosophers, particularly in the fields of ethics, political philosophy, and formal epistemology. Oxford has been a central hub for applying game-theoretic models to understand social cooperation, moral norms, and the "social contract". Notable names associated with game theory at Oxford include: Historically Influential Figures Richard Braithwaite: Often cited as the first professional philosopher to formally use game theory in ethics. In his 1954 lecture at Cambridge (later published in 1955), he applied Nash's bargaining problem to the "fair division" of resources. David Lewis: While primarily known for his work in metaphysics, his seminal book Convention (1969) used game theory to define social conventions as coordination equilibria, a foundational move in modern philosophy of language and social science. Derek Parfit: A Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, his work often engaged with the Prisoner's Dilemma and the rationality of cooperation in collective action problems, most famously in his book Reasons and Persons. Mackie: An Oxford philosopher who used game theory to analyze the persistence of harmful social conventions like foot-binding and female genital mutilation, modeling them as coordination games. Contemporary and Recent Faculty Bostrom: Professor at Oxford and director of the Future of Humanity Institute, his work on global catastrophic risks and AI often employs game-theoretic reasoning regarding strategic interactionand existential safety. Baccelli: A current faculty member whose research focuses on Decision Theory and the Philosophy of Economics, directly engaging with the formal foundations of game theory. Williamson: The Wykeham Professor of Logic Emeritus, whose work in Epistemology and Logic intersects with the "epistemic approach" to game theory—analyzing what players know about other players' knowledge and rationality. Hilary Greaves: A Professor of Philosophy whose work in Ethics and Epistemology often utilizes formal decision-theoretic and game-theoretic tools to evaluate normative frameworks.  Would you like to know more about how these philosophers use specific games (like the Prisoner's Dilemma) to solve moral problems? Admittedly, not everyone follows Grice’s sense of humour, so trust a philosopher or two – especially if not an English-born practitioner of English ordinary language philosophy will be overwhelmed by Grice’s reference to the rules of the conversational game which stipulate which conversational moves are optimal for the biggest game of all – should we keep on playing the GAME of life – i. .e. should a pirot continue playing the game of surviving, competitive as it feels? – The primary game-theoretical philosophical approach to H.P. Grice’s work is Game-Theoretic Pragmatics. This framework formalizes Grice’s Cooperative Principle and maxims by modeling conversational context as a signaling game between a speaker (sender) and a hearer (receiver).  Key Game-Theoretical Frameworks Signaling Games: The standard model where a speaker has private information (their "type" or the "state of the world") and chooses a message. The hearer then chooses an interpretation (action) to maximize mutual utility, reflecting Grice's idea of rational cooperation. Optimal Answer Models: These address Grice’s Maxim of Quantity by identifying the "most informative" response a rational player would provide given the listener's needs. Iterated Best Response Models: These simulate the recursive "I think that you think that I think" reasoning central to Gricean implicature. A speaker anticipates how a hearer will interpret a message and chooses their words accordingly to ensure the correct inference is made. Evolutionary Game Theory: This approach explains the emergence of linguistic conventions over time, viewing stable communication patterns (like Gricean maxims) as "attractors" or stable rest points in a dynamical system. Rational Speech Act Models: A probabilistic framework where speakers and listeners are modeled as rational agents who use Bayesian inference to resolve ambiguity and derive scalar implicatures. Philosophical Foundations. Rationality as Optimization: Philosophers like Prashant Parikh have used game theory to argue that communication is a process of solving coordination problems to achieve "equilibrium" in meaning. Utility Functions: In these models, Grice's Maxim of Relevance is implemented via utility functions that quantify the "value" or usefulness of information to the hearer. Strategic Reasoning: Unlike standard semantics, game-theoretical pragmatics focuses on strategic decision-making, where the meaning of an utterance is not just literal but the result of an optimal strategy chosen by rational players. Would you like to explore a specific model, such as the Iterated Best Response model, or see how game theory handles a particular Gricean maxim? Optimality-Theoretic and Game-Theoretic Approaches to Implicature. Optimality-Theoretic and Game-Theoretic Approaches to Implicature. Game Theoretic Pragmatics - Franke -  Philosophy Compass - Wiley Online Library When reviewing the conversations that we have dealt with in Part TWO: The Conversations, a syntactical point made by Grice needs to be taken into account. He is seeing himself as a philosopher REPORTING on a conversation. This approach is theory-theoretical. In his early ‘Meaning,’ his goal is to provide a third-person perspective (he’ll return to the first-person perspective of his earlier ‘Negation and Privation’ and ‘Personal identity’ soon after in this 1949 Intention and dispositions). A third-person perspective of what? Of what a conversationalist (in this broad use, almost Biblical) of ‘conversationalist.’ The analysandum is oddly in the past tense but it does not need to. By uttering x, U has meant that p iff… The focus here is on the “has meant that…” If we stick to the present tense that yields:By uttering x, U means that…which is more or less equivalent to what hundreds if not thousands of philosophers had examined before in terms of ‘significatio’ – with the profferatio of the utens and the auditor. It is important because in P. G. R. I. C. E. has to challenge the idea that “p” is being used as ‘dummy’: By uttering x, U means that p iff VOLITAJUDGEBJUDGEAp In predicate calculus format: By uttering x – ‘Where did the cat sit?’ U means that (Ex)CxMx iff VOLIT_AJUDGE_BVOLIT_A(Ex)CxMx By uttering “On the mat” B means that the cat sat on the mat iff VOLIT_BJUDGE_AJUDGE_B(Ex)CxMx. In all cases the ‘proposition’ referred to in the analysandum gets a repeated occurrence in the ‘analysans.’ There is circularity here. A similar subtle qualification occurred to Grice later in his career. He is coining not the implicature, but the DISIMPLICATURE now. He will eventually consider that ‘disimplicature’ should be used minimally in philosophical conversation. He gives a three examples of it. The first example of DISIMPLICTURE concerns Grice’s dissatisfaction with Davidson’s thinking that he could go on and apply Grice’s analysis of ‘itnention’ in the newly published ‘Intetnion and uncertainty.’ In a lecture by Davidson peppered with this obscure European publication in the Proceedings of the British Academy, Davidson quotes Grice on intending, and proposes conversational illustrations alla Grice. A He did not! B. He did. He climbed, Marmaduke Bloggs did, climbed Mt. Everest on hands and knees. Did he intend to? Grice is discussing cases when the goal is so difficult that ‘intend’ does not quite do, and you need to qualify: ‘if he can,” or ‘if I can.’ Such qualifier, the whole topic of Pears in ‘Ifs and Cans’ where he also reles on Grice’s conversational implicature, is best illustrated by Grice. A That’s all very fine. And what about your old age. B. I intend to raise ducks. Grice feels that he does not need to qualify ‘if I can’ since the outcome is long coming anyway. In any case, Grice disapproves of Davidson’s application of the concept of ‘implicature’ to the analysis of ‘itnention’ in that Davidson is treating an ‘entailment’ as an implicature – it is a DISIMPLICATURE which is at play, if anything. In terms of the philosopoher’s analysans and analysandum: A DISIMPLICATES that Marmaduke Bloggs BELIEVES that he can climb Mount Evereest on hands and knees. iff the usual constraints on conversational co-operation do not obtain. The second example concerns ‘Macbeth saw Banquo,’ ‘Hamlet saw the ghost of his father’ and ‘The tie is not blue, it is green.’ The issue was raised in ‘Further notes on logic and conversation. How do they compare. In the context of that lecture, Grice is concerned with M. O. R. Modified Occam Razor. How many senses does ‘see’ have? Is an expansion necessary or is it a violation of conversational form. A I tell you, the tie is blue. B Green to me. Since ‘a change of colour’ is out of the question, the conversationalists are using ‘is’ when ‘seems’ would be strictly more appropriate, but otiose under the circumstances. It is then that Grice turns to the parasitic use of ‘see’ in hallucinations. It would be otiose to add that ‘and he was hallucinating since Hamlet’s father was nowhere to be seen.’ (Cf. “When did you last see your father? “Yesterday night, in dreams). In Grice’s new nomenclature, the co-conversationalist is DISIMPLICATING. Conversationalist C DISIMPLICATES that q, if his conversational move would otherwise trigger the implicature that q, upon the conversationalist having explicitly communicated that q, but where no rational constraints on conversation are operative. The clearest is Grice’s third example of a disimplicature – a plain metaphor. SCENARIOS GRICE (looking at the cream on his coffee). You’re the cream in my coffee. MRS. GRICE: It’ll get cold. In a literal scenario, ‘You’re the cream in my coffee’ is uttered by a conversationalist to his intended addressee (‘the cream in my coffee’), and he’s not expecting a reply. These are the cases that Grice explored under the rubric, ‘Grice without an audience’ (Hyslop) in ‘Utterer’s meaning and intentions’. Grice’s REALISING that his addressee is no such, does not disqualify him from having meant that the cream in his coffee is his cream in his coffee. SCENARIO II is the metaphorical. Grice does not provide a conversational illustration, but since he is mocking the American Tin Palley satisfaction for cliché, he is thinking. A You’re the cream in my coffee! B You’re the salt in my stew! The lyricist spoils it all by turning these sublimine metaphors into cliché by turning the interpretant in the fourth line: ‘My only necessity is you.’ Grice had dealt correctly with metaphor as the absolute FLOUT of the desideratum of conversational candour in ‘Logic and Conversation.’ When rephrasing the apparatus with the addition of ‘DISIMPLICATURE’ it becomes Grice’s claim: A DISIMPLICATES that the addressee is the utterer’s cream in his coffee when all regulations about coherence and categorial affinity are suspended. However, it is not up to his “Method in philosophical psychology” where Grice feels it’s about time to answer the charges about the circular loop regarding his claims of the connection between the ‘semantic’ and the ‘psychic’ And that is why we are treating this under the Framework of the Framework – his theoy theory. It does not concern Grice’s theory of conversation as such, but its background. In fact, Grice goes on then to replace his earlier – in ‘Negation and privation’ – “mental act” to psychic, and then psychological. It is the bridge between the ‘semantic’ and the ‘psychological.’ Grice should not use ‘semantic’ so freely – he does (Part II of his Studies in the Way of Words is titled ‘Semantics and Metpahysics’) and the Retrospective Epilogue contains a reference to a distinction, however, between the pragmatic inference and not the semantic inference, but the ‘logical’ inference. Well imbued with readings of Aristotle’s DE INTERPRETATION, Grice is well aware of Aristotle’s ‘semantikos’ – a formation out of ‘semeion.’ Grice had infamously claimed in ‘Meaning’ in a remark meant to provoke the Lockeans, that words are not signs – where the Greek would be semeion, semeia (in the plural), signum, signa. In notes for the attending seminar to this talk on ‘Meaning,’ where he is distancing from Peirce and Ogden, and Wilby, Grice does grant that a thing need NOT be a ‘sign’ to be able to ‘signify.’ Indeed, an utterer SIGNIFES, and an utterer ain’t a sign. By switching from the psychic to the psycho-logical Grice is having a broader perspective or paradigm switch in mind. He s going to take seriously Aristotle’s idea of a soul as consisting of a developmental series – ‘soul’ or ‘life,’ Grice is indifferent about this – for the Greeks indeed, the psyche was the principle of life (bios, zoon) and it’s ‘life’ that Grice is into as he engages in a programme of pirotological ethology (or zoology or biology, starting from PLANTS, not animals).  The switch suggests, as Grice notes, that a psychic concept becomes a CONCEPT within a psycho-logical theory, with emphasis on the “-logical.” It is this ‘functionalist,’ Aristotelian account of the psycho-logical as a bridge between the PERCEPTUAL input of a creature and its manifested behavioural output that turns whatever we ascribe in between as a concept or TERM that becomes psychological by fiat. He is aware that by doing so he is distancing himself from an earlier intuitive, or intuition-based approach that was at the root of the ordinary-language philosophy movement (for what is ordinary language if not what intuitive speakers regard as such?). So he has a few caveats about the type of LAW in which such psycho-logical theory is supposed to consist: each law will be caeteris paribus and folksy in nature. Grice gave indeed a seminar which he entitled, simply, “Needs.” As any student in psychology will realise – if he happens to take Grice seriously, as he should – “needs” feature large. Surely, Grice is a philosopher, and would be reading philosophical literature only. The days of his realiance on Wundt were long gone, and if he needed to refer to this old school of psychology which was so influential at Oxford once – versus the trash as which he described most of his contemporary stuff – it would be to point his tutee out that ‘back in the day, you know, the question as to whether there can be thought without language was quite a high topic!”.  If his seminar on “Needs” was basic it did not involve basic needs as such – he thought that Stampe’s explorations, in any case, were more basic than his own (Stampe had been Grice’s tutee at Oxford).  Grice’s communicatology explorations range both the phylogenesis AND the phylogenesis and he is bold enough, as the Oxonian philosopher he was, to aptly proclaim it. His stage of communication devices by one pirot to another in a ‘conversation’ involving a groan, and the simulation thereof, is meant to be a ‘myth’ of both the phylogenesis AND the ontogenesis of communication – aptly representing how the non-iconical builds on the iconical – for what is a pooh-poo ouch ouch bow wow interjection of pain in a communication device if not a replica of what, in the pirot, any unwelcome external stimulus will CAUSE the alarming response. The stages of Grice’s PIROTESE reflect the stage from Esperanto to Deutero-Esperanto. There’s proto-pirotese, the mere groan; deutero-pirotese, the intention of the groan, tertio-pirotese: the reflective intention of the groan, tetra-pirotese, the reflective intention of the groan not deceptive, penta-pirotese: the protreptic version of this, hexo-pirotese: the exclamation. Grice saw this as either phylogenesis or ontogenesis. He was more familiar with the ontogenesis than the phylogenesis and he was known in Oxford’s town to interact with the classmates of his children, in scenarios that need to be reported: SCENARIO ONE: GRICE: Can a sweater be green and red all over? No stripes allowed. CHILD: No. SCENARIO TWO: GRICE: Can a sweater be green and red all over? No stripes allowed. CHILD: Yes. SCENARIO THREE: GRICE: Can a sweater be green and red all over? No stripes allowed. CHILD: MISTER GRICE, what do you mean?! It was a good thing that Carnap translated his own Logical Structure of the World. Piroten karulisen elaticalich. In German, indeed, ‘pirote’ – plural ‘piroten’ is something to consider. Grice once told Austin that he cared a hoot what the dictionary says. That was perhaps the pirot’s hoot. The OED indeed has ‘pirot’ as a variant spelling for ‘piddock,’ in which case, the noun phrase of Carnap’s attempt at nonsense proves the opposite.  His ‘Method in philosophical psychology,’ as he declares, he was proudly assured that it had been delivered as separate lectures elsewhere, including an occasion as the John Dewey Memorial lecture, so he knew. He does not describe squirrels in the “Method,” but squarrels. Indeed, it may come as a surprise for the philosopher – not Stampe – of course. But Grice manage to finds his perfect example. He is considering an attribution of a psychological (qua internal) state into a ‘creature’ – recall ‘God’ is used as ‘exegetical’ device – of a pirot – a squarel gobbling nuts – which nicely gets symbolized as “N.” Grice is aware that he is being artificial in the reconstruction, but he is only concerned with the specific machinery a philosophical psychologist – as he was being, in the long tradition from Aristotle and the empiricists – and not more than that. If you started to be concerned with MORE specific machineries, you ceased to be a PHILOSOPHICAL psychology, and would be regarded by your philosophical community as a ‘psychologist’ simpliciter – a bit of a blue-collar profession: a service profession – and NOT a philosopher, as he never wished to stop being. Grice would be familiar with the fact that squirrels – if not his squarrels – are notably UN-cooperative. This would hardly bother him. His ‘Method in philosophical psychology’ is meant to provide the framework for his framework. For each specimen of the species there would be qualifications to be made. And his squarrel was notably NOT the common European squarrel. Each scenario switches for each specimen and species – there may be cross-species type of rational (on the Homo sapiens sapiens part) ‘conversations’ – but not among squarrels, if they are supposed to represent a prototype of a squirrel. At Oxford, as it happens – if not in Grice’s days -- the common squirrel that you would encounter is the Eastern grey squirrel, Sciurus carolinensis, an invasive species from North America that has largely replaced the native Eurasian red squirrel, Sciurus vulgaris, in most of Oxford, if not England, or the UK. Regarding Grice’s query on "coo-rdinated" nut gathering via communication, these points are Griceian in character: Evidence for Coordination There is no scientific (psycho-logical or etho-logical, as Grice would have it) evidence that a specimen of Scirius vulgaris co-ordinates, in a "brood,” or group, to gather – never mind eat -- nuts through communicative devices.  Instead, the Scirius vulgaris is primarily a solitary (or Cartesian as Grice would have it) forager, that as a matter of fact, *compete*, rather than co-operate, for resources.  Individual Strategies Over Coordination are then the norm, not the Griceian expectation for his specimen of Homo sapiens sapiens. Scatter Hoarding. Unlike social insects (bees or ants), the Scirius vulgaris uses a "scatter hoarding" strategy where the speciem buries often *thousands* of nuts independently. Spatial Memory: The Scirius vulgaris, unlike Homo sapiens, relies on sophisticated spatial memory and "spatial chunking,” organizing nuts by type, to find their own caches rather than sharing a communal stash. On top, there is evidence for what Grice calls the ‘sneak’, or Deceptive Behaviour. Far from coordinating or abiding by what Grice dubs alternatively the principle of conversational benevolence or, the principle of conversational helpfulness, a specimen of Scirius vulgaris will often be competitive and deceptive. Spceimens of Scirius vulgaris have been observed – not by Grice, but by Derek, his brother -- making what Derek Grice called a "fake" cach — i. e., pretending to bury a nut only while being watched — to trick another squirrel or squirrels – which are its conspecifics -- who might try to steal their food.  When it comes then to what Grice would characterize as the ‘potential’ ‘role’ – in survival -- of ‘communication’ or ‘conversation’ at this level, it needs to be pointed that, while the Scirius vulgaris – the model behind Grice’s squarrel – does NOT co-ordinate gathering, it does use communication for *other* social purposes. These include: Alarm Calls: The Sciius vulgaris expectably uses vocalisations – sometimes annoyingly to the Oxford philosophy tutor – such as a bark, a piece of co-ordinated chatter, a whistle, and tail-flicking to warn another speciemen or specimens of a predator – say, an Oxford philosophy don or couple of them perpateting on The Meadow – but NOT to signal food location. Tail Signaling: This is a tail movements– a ‘gesture’ in Grice’s parlance – and thus an ‘utterance’ or ‘complete or whole utterance type -- can communicate or signal or ‘mean’ – in Grice’s preferred Anglo-Saxonism – frustration, or aggression, to keep other speciemsn or members of other species – such as Homo sapiens sapiens as Grice was -- away from a specific foraging area. Social Learning: There is also evidence, some collected by Derek Grice, that specimens – especially virtuous  specimens of Scirius vulgaris can *learn* -- and not just learning how, but learning that – (to use Grice’s use of Ryle’s distinction) by observing another specimen or other specimens -- e.g., seeing which pots contain food, but this is "eaves-dropping,” and not what Grice would have as active co-ordination of the type promoted for Homo sapiens sapiens by his principle of conversational benevolence or his principle of conversational helpfulness. Derek Grice observed that if you happened to have noticed specimens of Scirius vulgaris near each other in The Meadow, as Oxonians call it, it is likely due to high food density, such as an idle tutor or two stupidly feeding them – when he or they should be elsewhere – ‘learning’ even if not poor --, rather than a co-operative effort effort of the type that Grice subscribes to Homo sapiens sapiens – “in our better moments, of course.”  The European species found in Oxford is the Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris). While they were once common in the region, they are now extremely rare in Oxfordshire due to competition and disease (squirrelpox) from the introduced eastern grey squirrel. Nature of Communication Communication in red squirrels is not exclusivelyrestricted to alarm scenarios. While alarm calls are the most prominent and easily detected, they also use vocalizations for: Agonistic Interaction: To defend territories, establish dominance, or ward off unwanted suitors. Contact & Affiliation: Soft sounds used between mothers and kits or during courtship. Reproductive Cycles: Males use specific calls when pursuing females in estrous. Phonetic Interaction & Proxemics The following table outlines a typical interaction between two adult red squirrels (an intruder and a resident) at a distance, including proxemics (the use of space to communicate). Interaction StepProxemic ZoneVocalization (Phonetic)Meaning/Intent AdvertisementPublic(>12 ft)Rrrrr-ratt-ratt. Resident: "This oak is occupied; stay back." Intrusion Social(4-12 ft)Muk-muk(stifled sneeze)Intruder: "I am approaching with no aggressive intent." Warning Personal (1.5-4 ft). Kuk-kuk-kuk (sharp barks) Resident: "You are too close; retreat now." AgitationIntimate(<1.5 ft)Chrrr-chrrr(tooth chattering). Both: "I will bite if you do not move." Oxonian "Translation" In the spirit of Oxford's academic and formal atmosphere, here is how a vocal exchange between two "rare" red squirrels might be rendered in Oxonian English: Resident Squirrel (from a high branch):"I say, old chap, I trust you’ve noticed the boundary of this particular canopy? One simply cannot have every passing rodent rummaging through one's private cache of hazelnuts. It’s strictly 'members only' up here, I'm afraid."Intruder Squirrel (pausing on the trunk):"Terribly sorry, Dean. I was merely passing through on my way to the Botanic Garden. I had no intention of infringing upon your tenure. I shall scurry along toward the High Street immediately."Resident Squirrel (flicking tail aggressively):"Quite right. Do mind the gap on your way down, and do try to avoid those common grey fellows near the Bodleian—they have no sense of decorum whatsoever."If you are interested in the conservation efforts being made to reintroduce these squirrels to southern England, I can provide more details on the Red Squirrel Survival Trust or local Oxfordshire wildlife initiatives. Would you like to know more about the specific habitats they prefer? Grice is returning to deeper psychological problems that he had encountered causally in his earlier ‘Further notes on logic and conversation.’ When distancing himself from Nowell-Smith, Austin, or Urmson on the treatment of the ‘implication’ behind the pragmatic contraditction posed by Moore’s paradox Grice is clear. He des not want to say that by uttering ‘The cat sat on the mat,’ the utterer has IMPLIED that he believes that the cat is on the mat. That’s NOT, he remarks, a natural use of ‘imply.’ Rather the utterer has EXPRESSED that the cat sat on the mat. Or technically, the utterer has EXPRESSED his belief that the cat sat on the mat. ‘Express’ had been the kernel behind idealist Brentano-type accounts of communication known in Europe via Croce and at Oxford via Collingwood. Grice will return to ‘express’ in “Method in philosophical psychology” exactly in terms of one of those laws of the psycho-logical theory, caeteris paribus, and folksy in nature. It is, as B. F. Loar has suggested, a functionalist empiricist account of what Grice in his Kantian flights regards as a moral rational constraint, seen here as a mere contingent generalization over functional states. The example in particular Grice redacts as follows A JUDGE A JUDGE the cat is on the mat. He wants to say that  A JUDGE-2 the cat is on the mat. Is there a NON-LINGUISTIC difference between a pirot manifesting his JUDGEMENT that the cat is on the mat from a pirot manifesting his judgement that he judges that the cat is on the mat? Grice realizes that to allow for distinction without behavioural manifestation will not be easily welcomed by Wittgensteiians. However, he choses that path, if only because that seems to Grice to be the only way to reach the ‘reconstruction’ of the idea of EXPRESSING.The law in question would be: By uttering ‘The cat sat on the mat’ A EXPRESSES that the cat is on the mat iff A judges-2 that the cat is on the mat. In the earlier format of “Logic and Conversation” this gives justification to the ‘dull, empiricist’ answer to the fundamental question of why we follow the maxims – in this case, do not say what you believe to be false. Caeteris paribus, pirots are constructed in such a way that they can express their beliefs and volitions. The other pirots can RELY on that. This reliance is what is behind the second conversational maxim under QUALITAS – do not say that for which you lack evidence for. He had explored this in his earlier ‘Intention and Uncertainty’ addressing his audience at the British Academy with the President of the British Academy – A. J. P. Kenny, in evidence. GRICE: The president has a corkscrew in his pocket. MEMBER of the audience: What reason do you have to utter thus? GRICE. Oh, no reason whatsoever. The conversational is possible, and Grice has made a conversational move. But it is not an APPROPRAITE conversational move. It is not a conversational move that passes muster in either terms of this ‘contigent’ empirical generalization between functional states OR in the Kantian quasi-contractualist or plain rationalist lines of his earlier ‘Logic and Conversation.’ While Grice is technical about pirots, and pirotology in his “Method in philosophical psychology” that was because he was torturing his tutees at an early stage with Carnap’s ealy pirots that karulise elatically. In this earlier seminars, Grice goes on to coin PIROTESE – a variant of his secretive communication device – his new Highway Code devised while laying in the tub – or his later ‘Deutero-Esperanto.’ In Pirotese, the point is to provide a SIMPLIFICATION of our ways of talk. Borrowing (but not returning) from Austin: “Simple Ways”: Grice refers to PIROTESE as a simpler way of talking. Recall that the type of conversational dyad that Grice is having in mind is such that springs when A finds himself in a survival risk: A: Where did the dean’s cat sit? B: On the mat. By applying ‘potching’ and ‘cotching’, Grice will have more primitive counterparts of his VOL AND JUD. VOL and JUD are both forms of ‘cotching’ or conceiving – as in The Conception of Reason, not the Concept of it. But this cotching presupposes an earlier POTCHing, which is merely a perceptual rae-presentation, iconic in part, caused by the events in question. It is because B perceived (or potches) that the cat sat on the mat, that he can CONCEIVE (coth), indeed, JUDGE, that the cat is on the mat, and thus he is in a position to abide by the desideratum of conversational candour and supply the information A is after in his query – the formula with a single unknown item: A has already potched the cat, and the mat, and the concept of sit – A is just not clear if the cat did sit on the mat on the occasion he is inquiring about. In “Method in philosophical psychology”, while Grice expands on the MOLECULAR potchings and cotching or that potching and cotching which involves yet a unary opearator such as ‘not’ – he does not go any deeper. In his earlier ‘Pirotese’: “How pirots karulilse elatically, some simple ways” he does. If potch and cotch seem primitive enough, object does not. It’s an obble all that pirots require – not surprsisingly, Grice stopped using a personal computer when he realised that not only was it not allowing ‘sticky wicket’, but spell checking his pirot into a parot.  An obble is yet not all that there is. Grice uses ‘o’ to symbolize it, and uses subscripts. As with ‘the cat’ – the dean’s cat, that is, which is a dog – and ‘the mat’, and the dyadic predicate on ‘sitting on’ – explored in ‘Actions and Events’ – we have o1 and o2. Grice further introduces the fing and the fang. These stand for properties – and are symbolized as F1 and F2. So, it is one PICTURE of rae-presentatio that will be given as o₁ F1 o₂ – the cat sat on the mat --. If the dean’s cat is shaggy enough, that’s a FING. If he is disposed to sit for too long of a period on a mat, that’s a FANG. Grice introduces a further element in PIROTESE, id, which stands for a Relation – dyadic at least. The cat is shaggy and sat on the mat – we have obble o1, the shaggy cat, and obble o2, the mat, and the dyadic relation of ‘sitting on’ – the id. The obble is indeed a post-Warnockian innovation. Grice realizes that his joint seminars with Warnock on the philosophy of perception – notably centred around ‘visa’ – were insufficient in that they did not delve deeper into the THING-aspect. The blame is on Russell who speaks of a meta-language and an object-language, a language of objects o obbles. But for Kant, what we’ll never know is not so much the obble, but the ting-a-ling (the thing in itself – Ding an Sich – that stands allegedly BEHIND A’s and B’s potching and cotching of o1, o2, their fings, fangs, and Fids. In logical forms, A: Where did the cat sit? B. On the mat. VOLBJUDAJUDB(the cat sat on the mat). OBBLE-FORMULATION: VOL_BJUD_AJUD_B(Fango1Fango2Fid) THING-FORMULATION – for ‘the thorn rune’ to represent the ting-a-ling: VOL_BJUD_AJUD_B(FandDING1FingDING2Fid). Or using ϸ VOL_BJUD_AJUD_B(FANGϸ₁FINGϸ₂FID) where ϸ is pirotese not for ‘obble’ but for ‘dingaling.’ – and not to be confused with Grice’s θ – lower case of Θ – which Grice uses in “Method in philosophical psychology’ to represent the Hellenic ‘th’ of theory, not the Anglo-Saxon ‘th’ of ‘thing.’ Grice remained a MONIST in various areas. In the specific area of philosophical psychology he proved ecumenical enough. He does attempt a definition of JUD in terms of VOL:JUDAp =def VOLA(Making Move M – effect 1/p vs. making Move effect 1 not realised if ~p, p. A judgement is a second order volition regarding one’s action towards the effectiveness of its effect. If the action does not lead to the intended effect, the judgement would involve a false conception. And it is for the best of the pirot’s survival that his actions do prove effective. Grice saw this as an offshoot of a folksy rule in philosophical psychology: Desire is the Father of Thought, or we soon believe what we desire. Note that his monism also explodes when he turns the panoply of conversational maxims – whichever and how many they might be – all falling under ONE single Conversational Imperative: his principle of conversational benevolence. In sum, what Grice is offering is a conversational framework that makes base with reality. His concern is that of the standard philosopher who wants to provide a foundation for his critical variety of realism. Perception will provide a RAE-PRESENTATION of the shaggy cat sitting on the mat. But this RAE-PRESENTATION is doing a job. – Grice is sure at this point that, for all his functionalist adventures, to ‘rae-present’ is like to play cricket, or football.  When he was the captain of the football team at Corpus for one year, he knew that THE CORPUS FOOTBALL TEAM is doing for CORPUS what CORPUS cannot do for itself, to wit: engage in a game of football.In a similar fashion there is no way the shaggy cat that sat on the mat can just ‘appear’ on the scene. The most they can is GET RAE-PRESENTED --. Grice allows that the most primitive form of rae-presentation – having learned Pierce almost by heart – is EICONIC, or iconic, i. .e. natural, and causal (His ‘spots’ that ‘meant’ measles). But there is a SECONDARY, more sophisticated type of RAE-PRESENTATIO which takes place when this iconic mode of correlation gets replaced by a non-iconic one. There is nothing in ‘the’ ‘cat’ ‘sat’ ‘on’ ‘the’ ‘mat’ that displays an ICONIC mode of correlation with the fact that they, in combination, manage to ‘rae-pressent.’ In asking his question, A is NOT interested in how B perceived the shaggy cat sitting on the mat. A is, as a matter of survival, ONLY interested in the real cat, really shaggy as she is, really sitting on the real mat. Not obbles, but ding-a-lings. Grice’s conception of rationality still has a way to go, and he elaborates on that in Aspects of Reason and Reasoning. When reminiscing on them in ‘Prejudices and predilections’ he is aware that there was a causal link missing: the reasoner’s belief in the consequence of his reasoning has to be CAUSED by his INTENTION that there be a legitimate passage that lead to that consequence from his belief in the premiss. He spends most of the lectures on reasoning as he ascends the ladder from credibility and desirability to universable forms of such patterns, with an ultimate goal of the provision of ‘If you want to be happy, abide by the categorical imperative.’ As a bonus, he provides a definition of ‘eudaimonia’ in terms of such constraints – which allows him to accept that it is, to echo Locke, the PERSON, or very intelligent rational MAN that can be happy – more of the country gentleman, than the monomaniac stamp collector! One of the virtues of Grice’s theory of conversation is that, unlike that proposed by his critics, it is elementary and self-evidently true. If he was a-systematic in the presentation of it, it was this obviousness to it that justified his doing so. No philosopher worth his name is expected – at Oxford or elsewhere – to be lectured on how conversation should proceed. But there is a deeper reason for this. Grice is aware, as he becomes aware of his own development as a philosopher, that there is an underlying unity, with REASON featuring large. Indeed, if one can think of a good expansion for P. G. R. I. C. E. that would be the PHILOSOPHICAL (not scientific) GROUNDS (i. .e. foundations) of RATIONALITY, or the faculty of REASON – conversational or other – behind it – in more basic elements, which may well be ultimately pre-rational, since reason is not self-justificatory: INTENTIONS, that is the meat and bones of his m-intentions which inform his provision of the significance of the conversational moves made by rational players --, the CATEGORIES, be they conversational – QUALITAS, QUANTITAS, RELATIO, MODVS, you name them – and ENDS – which are the things that make you happy, and not just the thing you have to achieve at the end of EACH of the conversation you happen to find yourself a part of.  This systematics is typical of the philosophising of some philosophers – think Leibniz, think Aquinas – but not all: think Derrida! The systematics allows for a theory-theory and not just a theory of conversation. The philosopher sees himself a theory-theorist, i. e. as the designated human in society to provide a theory for a theory. Grice is thus not only providing a theory (never an analysis) of conversation – significance and communication – but a THEORY for it, grounded on rationality, and he spent the full Immanuel Kant lectures AND the John Locke lectures lecturing about what he entitled the ‘aspects of reason and REASON-ing.’  The elements constitutive of the theory of conversation – understood as a branch of psychologia rationalis, are those provided by this bigger picture. Grice regretted that with the specialisation that was more and more required in academia – including Oxford – it was a sad consequence that philosophers may not even be REQUIRED to provide a general background of what he was doing. And Grice was especially offended by one of his colleagues, that would confess that he ‘could engage in any branch of philosophy,’ ‘except ethics’! One topic which belongs not to Grice’s philosophy of language simpliciter (what I here call the framework) but to what I here call the FRAMEWORK of the framework (Grice’s theory-theory) is causation. Was was ambivalent towards causation for his whole life. When he citicised Stevenson – in the Yale 1944 novelty that Grice rushed to buy – on Ethics and Language, he goes on to criticise publicly in The Oxford Philosophical Society as being ‘too causal to be true.’ But when in the Kant Lectures he fails to give an account of the link between a REASONER’S acceptance of the consequence out of the reasoner’s acceptance of the PREMISE, in his ‘Prejudices and predilections,’ he notes that he now sees that he left a gap in those lectures at Stanford and Oxford on reason: the causal link. A proper piece of reasoning can only be deemed to take place if the reasoner’s ACCEPTANCE of the consequence is CAUSED by his acceptance of the premisse. He had ventured an analogous explanation for his earlier ‘Intention and uncertainty.’ After dismissing his optimistic palaeo-Stoutian account of intending for a neo-Prichardian one, Grice hastens to add the causal link: GRICE: Please untie me! My head is aching – I need to scratch it! GUARD. Alright, alright. Don’t make such a fuss about it (He realeases Grice’s arms – Grice remains still). I thought you were going to scratch your head. GRICE. I’ve changed my mind. Grice’s point being that the agent’s INTENTION to do action A is a combination of a WILING that he will do action A AND a BELIEF (with a probability greater than 0.5) that his WILLING will CAUSE action A. Later in his career, -- in ‘Actions and Events,’ distanced himself from this causalist position, very much in line with his more Heglatonian (rather than confessed Kantotelian) account of conversation. If conversation is a free enterprised conjoined freely by feely-acting agents, we should stop asking for causal justifications. And there is an easy way to do that, by dispensing the Prichardian conditions on willing of causal efficacy. GRICE. My son gave a good friend of his a job at his car body parts shop. STRAWSON. That was so kind of him. It is a small shop, though. Did Timothy really need to give his friend a job? GRICE. Oh, he never got the job. My son just GAVE he job to hm. Grice’s point being that when it comes to conversation and life at large, it is not the INTENTION but the good intention that paves the way to hell. Giving the job means the INTENTION to give the job. There is no way in hell that the purity of the agent’s intention is to be nullified by the fact that the recipient never GETS to get the job! The underlying theme behind the framework of the framework, that is, the theory theory that back his theory of conversation as part of psycholgia rationalis, is survival. Each species – not specimen – of pirot has its own survival conditions.  ETHICS FOR CONVERSATION. The conditions for Homo sapiens sapiens are not those for Troglodytes aedon or Fringilla domesticus, to use Austin’s example (“I KNOW that’s a goldfinch, I don’t just BELIEVE it!”). Evolutionarily, it may well be the case that vision was monocular. But when it comes to Homo sapiens sapiens, the philosopher need not rely on the scientific results of the empirical anthropological science. He just knows that a Homo sapiens ssapiens has TWO eyes and two eyes only by means of which he sees (“I see with my eyes, Geoffrey Sampson tested his students at Lancaster, only to prove that only half of them thought it was analytic). Thereofore, Grice’s explorations on the senses of the Martians become relevant. In more phenomenological terms, Grice is concerned with EXPERIENCE, as categorially determined for Homo sapiens sapiens, in the survival conditions and evolutionary stage at which Homo sapiens sapiens finds himself. The conditions of conversation FOLLOW from this bigger paradigm. Philosophers, after all, are into the big picture, and NOTHING but the big picture, trust me, will satisfy them – even if they are of the Oxonian minutiae type seemingly involved with the prognostics of linguistic botany, as H. P. Grice was often characterised as being! It has been my emphasis along these notes that, in spite of its superficial appearance, the game is NOT the paradigm of rationality, or reason, for Grice, and I shall make my point here in a stronger way by replicating Grice’s motivation behind his exploration on what he calls the ‘asspects of reason and REASONING’ (original title of the Kant lecture), the final one. He will take up the issue in the middle Carus lecture, specifically applied to the logical form of the IMPERATIVE – hypothetical versus categorical – and how. Grice provides the steps as extracted from his reading of Abbott’s Kant. The steps are five in number. But they come with an explanatory note about the symbols about to be utilized. This note refers to the use of alpha a, to be read as “It is NECESSARY” – “IT MUST” -- , given let it be that one bi-sect a line on an unerring principle, that let it be that I draw from its extremities two intersecting arcs.”(Kant’s start, as Grice’s, lies on the ANALYTICITY of such an imperative – he will take this for granted in his later discussion of imperatives in general in the middle Carus lecture, which had pbeen previously published, also posthumously, but shortly after Grice’s death, in 1991 –Grice died in 1988). Beta b =  To be read: “If one bi-sects a line on an unerring principle, one does so only as a result of having drawn from its extremities two intersecting arcs.” The steps are five. The first being: “It is ANALYTIC –and thus conceptual, rather than informative -- that (so far as the agent is RATIONAL, and not merely REASONABLE, no less) he who wills the end wills the means (Machiavelli weakened). The second step Grice formulates as: “It is analytic that (so far as the agent is not just reasonable but rational) IF one wills that Q, and JUDGES – our JUD, used all along these notes -- that IF Q, Q only as a RESULT or consequence (Hobbes’s consequential) of P, one wills that Q. – where the ‘wills’ is the VOL we have been using all along these notes. The third step Grice formulates as a third theorem, with the turnstile as having maxmal scope, it is a thorem. It is analytic that (so far as the agent is not only reasonable, but rational), if the adgent judges that if Q. Q as a result of P, if one wills that P, one wills that Q.The fourth step: It is analytic that if, if Q, Q as a result of P, IF let it be that Q, it must be that let it be that P. The final step in Grice’s reconstruction of Abbott’s Kant: It is analytic that if Q, P. Grice now turns to the scheme in rudimentary terms of his own reconstruction of Kant’s – indeed Kantotle’s progression to the City of Eternal Truth: Grice’s reconstruction steps are seven. Grice formulates Step One as follows: Fundamental law that (cæteris paribus) for any pirot x (for any A, B), if x wills A and judges that if A. A as a result of B, x wills B. The second step: x wills that (for any A, B) if x wills A and judges that if A, A as a resuit of B, x is to will that B.Third step:x should (qua not just reasonable, but rational) judge that (for any A, B) if it is satisfactory to will that A and also satisfactory to judge that if A, A only as a result of B, it is satisfactory to will that B Fourth Step. x should (qua not just reasonable, but rational) judge that (for any A, B) if it is satisfactory that ! A and also satisfactory that if FA. A only as a result of B, then it is satisfactory that! B. Fifth Step:x should (q.r.) judge that (for any A, B) if it is satisfactory that if + A, F A only because B, it is satisfactory that, if let it be that A, let it be that B. Sixth Step:x should (q.r.) judge that (for any A, B) if A, A only because B, yields if let it be that A, let it be that B.Seventh Step(For any A. B) if A, A only because B yields if let it be that A, let it be that B.Grice is making the most of his account of ‘satisfactoriness’ which he had learned from Tarski lies at the heart of it all, and to which we have alluded previously in our re-construction of his ‘satisfactoriness’ corololaries both for his System GHP in the alethic realm (Originally his system Q after Quine) and the buletic realm. The final segment of Part Three should appropriately be dedicated to FREEDOM, since it was understood by Grice as an essential requisite of rationality or reason, and the treatment of topics to which he was directing his attention at the time of his death. Our focus on ‘conversation’ requires to adapt his generalities about the conceptual link between rationality and freedom (or rather the property of FREEDOM as springing from the faculty of REASONING of as a fully autonomous agent engaged with another equally fully autonomous agent in conversation. There are three apposite comments. The Gricean treatment that ‘freedom’ receives in ‘Actions and Events’ is cybernetical, i.e. a chain or succession of steps. On some occasions, philosophers other than Grice had advanced Grice’s views on this, notably Bratman.The second treatment, concerns his more ‘noumenal’ view, also in ‘Actions and events’, where he is emphasizing the freedom that results of an agent that FREELY ENGAGES to find himself engaged in ‘conversation’ in the first place – rational or not. A preamble to this treatment is Kantian in origin, as Grice compared Oxford as a despository of free thinkers as Kant was not able to have done the same at Koenigsberg. So first for the cybernetics.My purpose in this section is to give a little thought to the question 'What are the general principles exemplified, in creature-construction, in progressing from one type of pirot to a higher type? What KINDS of steps are being made? The kinds of step with which I shall deal here are those which culminate in a licence to include, within the specification of the content of the psychological state of certain pirots, a range of expressions which would be inappropriate with respect to lower pirots; such expressions include connectives, quantifiers, temporal modifiers, mood indicators, modal operators, and (importantly) names of psychological states like "judge" and "will". Expressions, the availability of which leads to the structural enrichment of specifications of content. In general, these steps will be ones by which items or ideas which have, initially, a legitimate place outside the scope of psychological instantiables (or, if you will, the expressions for which occur legitimately outside the scope of psychological verbs) come to have a legitimate place within the scope of such instantiables: steps by which (one might say) such items or ideas come to be internalised. I am disposed to regard as prototypical the sort of natural disposition which Hume attributes to us, and which is very important to him; name, the tendency of the mind 'to spread itself upon objects' to project into the world items which, properly (or primitively) considered, are really features of our states of mind. I shall set out in stages the application of aspects of the genitorial programme.” We then start with a zero-order, with pirots equipped to satisfy unnested judging and willing (i.e. whose contents do _not_ involve judging or willing). We soon reachPirot-1. "It would be advantageous to pirots-0 if they could have judging and willing, which relate to their own judging or willing." Such pirots (pirots-1) could be equipped to control or regulate their own judgings and willings. They will presumably be already constituted so as to conform to the law that caeteris paribus if they will that p and judge that ~p, if they can, they make it the case that p in their 'minds'. To give them some control over their judgings and willings, we need only extend the application of this law to their judging and willing. We equip them so that caeteris paribus IF they will that they do not will that p and judge that they do will that p, (if they can) they make it the case that they do NOT will that p. And we somehow ensure that sometimes they CAN do this. It may be that the installation of this kind of control would go hand in had with the installation of the capacity for evaluation."Pirot-2. Unlike it is the case with a pirot-1, a pirot-2's intentional efforts depend on the motivational strength of its considered desires at the time of action. We have been seeing the process by which conflicting considered desires motivate action as a broadly causal process, a process that reveals motivational strength. But a pirot-2 might itself try to weigh considerations provided by such conflicting desires in deliberation about the pros and cons of various alternatives. In the simplest case, such weighing treats each of the things desired as a prima facie justifying end. In the face of conflict it weighs such desired ends, where the weights correspond to the motivational strength of the associated considered desire. The outcome of such deliberation will match the outcome of the causal motivational process envisioned in our description of a pirot-2. But since the weights it invokes in such deliberation correspond to the motivational strength of the relevant considered desires (though perhaps not to the motivational strength of the relevant considered desires), the resultant activities will match those of a corresponding pirot-2 (*all* of whose desires, we are assuming, are considered). To be more realistic we might limit ourselves to saying that a pirot-2 has the capacity to make the transition from unconsidered to considered desires but does not always do this. But it will keep the discussion more manageable to simplify and to suppose that *all* its desires are considered.Pirot-3. We shall not want these pirots-2 to depend, in each will and act in ways that reveal the motivational strength of considered desires at the time of action, but for a pirot-3 it will also be true that in some (though not all) cases it acts on the basis of how it weights the ends favoured by its conflicting considered desires. Pirot-3's considered desires will concern matters that cannot be achieved simply by action at a single time. Pirot-3 may, for example, want to nurture a vegetable garden, or build a house. Such matters will require organized and coordinated action that extends over time. What the pirot-3 does now will depend not only on what it now desires but also on what it now expects it will do later given what it does now. It needs a way of settling now what it will do later given what it does now. The point is even clearer when we remind ourselves that pirot-3 is not alone. It is, we may assume, one of some number of pirots-3; and in many cases it needs to coordinate what it does with what other pirots-3 do so as to achieve ends desired by all participants, itself included. Pirots-4. These costs are magnified for a pirot-4 whose various plans are interwoven so that a change in one element can have significant ripple effects that will need to be considered. Let us suppose that the general strategies pirot-4 has for responding to new information about its circumstances are sensitive to these kinds of costs. Promoting in the long run the satisfaction of its considered desires and preferences. Pirot-4 is a somewhat sophisticated planning agent but it has a problem. It can expect that its desires and preferences may well change over time and undermine its efforts at organizing and coordinating its activities over time. Perhaps in many cases this is due to the kind of temporal discounting. So for example pirot-4 may have a plan to exercise every day but may tend to prefer a sequence of not exercising on the present day but exercising all days in the future, to a uniform sequence the present day included. At the end of the day it returns to its earlier considered preference in favour of exercising on each and every day. Though pirot-4, unlike pirot-3, has the capacity to settle on prior plans or plaices concerning exercise, this capacity does not yet help in such a case. A creature whose plans were stable in ways in part shaped by such a no-regret principle would be more likely than pirot-4 to resist temporary temptations. Pirot-5. So let us build such a principle into the stability of the plans of a pirot-5, whose plans and policies are not derived solely from facts about its limits of time, attention, and the like. It is also grounded in the central concerns of a planning agent with its own future, concerns that lend special significance to anticipated future regret. So let us add to pirot-5 the capacity and disposition to arrive at such hierarchies of higher-order desires concerning its "will". Pirot-6. This gives us a new creature, pirot-6. There is a problem with pirot-6, one that has been much discussed. It is not clear why a higher-order desire -- even a higher-order desire that a certain desire be one's "will" -- is not simply one more desire in the pool of desires (Berkeley God's will problem). Why does it have the authority to constitute or ensure the agent's (that is, the creature's) endorsement or rejection of a first-order desire? Applied to pirot-6 this is the question of whether, by virtue solely of its hierarchies of desires, it really does succeed in taking its own stand of endorsement or rejection of various first-order desires. Since it was the ability to take its own stand that we are trying to provide in the move to pirot-6, we need some response to this challenge. The basic point is that pirot-6 is not merely a time-slice agent. It is, rather, and understands itself to be, a temporally persisting planning agent, one who begins, and continues, and completes temporally extended projects. On a broadly Lockean view, its persistence over time consists in relevant psychological continuities (e.g., the persistence of attitudes of belief and intention) and connections (e.g., memory of a past event, or the later intentional execution of an intention formed earlier). Certain attitudes have as a primary role the constitution and support of such Lockean continuities and connections. In particular, policies that favour or reject various desires have it as their role to constitute and support various continuities both of ordinary desires and of the politicos themselves. For this reason such policies are not merely additional wiggles in the psychic stew. Instead, these policies have a claim to help determine where the agent -- i.e., the temporally persisting agent -- stands with respect to its desires. Or so it seems to me reasonable to say. Pirot-7. So the psychology of pirot-7 continues to have the hierarchical structure of pro-attitudes introduced with pirot-6. The difference is that the higher-order pro-attitudes of pirot-6 were simply characterized as desires in a broad, generic sense, and no appeal was made to the distinctive species of pro-attitude constituted by plan-like attitudes. That is the sense in which the psychology of pirot-7 is an extension of the psychology of pirot-6. Let us then give pirot-7 such higher-order policies with the capacity to take a stand with respect to its desires by arriving at relevant higher-order policies concerning the functioning of those desires over time. Pirot-7 exhibits a merger of hierarchical and planning structures. Appealing to planning theory and ground in connection to the temporally extended structure of agency to be one's "will". Pirot-7 has higher-order policies that favour or challenge motivational roles of its considered desires. When Pirot-7 engages in deliberative weighing of conflicting, desired ends it seems that the assigned weights should reflect the policies that determine where it stands with respect to relevant desires. But the policies we have so far appealed to -- policies concerning what desires are to be one's will -- do not quite address this concern. The problem is that one can in certain cases have policies concerning which desires are to motivate and yet these not be policies that accord what those desires are for a corresponding justifying role in deliberation. Pirots-8. A solution is to give our creature -- call it pirot-8 -- the capacity to arrive at policies that express its commitment to be motivated by a desire by way of its treatment of that desire as providing, in deliberation, a justifying end for action. Pirot-8 has policies for treating (or not treating) certain desires as providing justifying ends -- as, in this way, reason-providing -- in motivationally effective deliberation. Let us call such policies self-governing policies. We will suppose that these policies are mutually compatible and do not challenge each other. In this way pirot-8 involves an extension of structures already present in pirot-7. The grounds on which pirot-8 arrives at (and on occasion revises) such self-governing policies will be many and varied. We can see these policies as crystallizing complex pressures and concerns, some of which are grounded in other policies or desires. These self-governing policies may be tentative and will normally not be immune to change. If we ask what pirot-8 values in this case, the answer seems to be: what it values is constituted in part by its higher-order self-governing policies. In particular, it values exercise over nonexercise even right now, and even given that it has a considered (though temporary) preference to the contrary. Unlike lower pirots, what pirot-8 now values is not simply a matter of its present, considered desires and preferences. Now this model of pirot-8 seems in relevant aspects to be a (partial) model of us. (in our better moments, of course). So we arrive at the conjecture that one important kind of valuing of which we are capable involves, in the cited ways, both our first-order desires and our higher order self-governing policies. In an important sub-class of cases our valuing involves reflexive polices that are both first-order policies of action and higher-order policies to treat the first-order policy as reason providing in motivationally effective deliberation. This may seem odd. Valuing seems normally to be a first-order attitude. One values honesty, say. The proposal is that an important kind of valuing involves higher-order policies. Does this mean that, strictly speaking, what one values (in this sense) is itself a desire -- not honesty, say, but a desire for honesty? No, it does not. What I value in the present case is honesty; but, on the theory, my valuing honesty in art consists in certain higher-order self-governing policies. An agent's reflective valuing involves a kind of higher-order willing. And now for the Kantian preamble that leads back to Bologna, where it all began!  The Kantian problem, or Grice’s stride at the sub-faculty of philosophy. That ingraven gift and facultie of wit and reason. Fraunce, Lawters Log. A rationalist strides at Oxford. A point about stride. In his openly polemic Der Streit der Fakultäten in drey Absichten – henceforward SF, all references to the bilingual edition – Kant’s polemic emphasis is clear from the very start: ‘Der Streit,’ usually rendering as ‘conflict’ or ‘contest.’ The logical grammar behind Kant’s Streit is cless clear. The whole tract is entitled ‘Der Streit der Facultaten in drey Absichten,’ but other than in the general title, the grammar is more specific in each of the three sections. In each of them it is the Faculty of Philsophy as it enters into a ‘Streit’ with that of Theology (), Jurisprudence, and Medicine. Strictly, Kant means Kant. To use Ryle’s idea of a category mistake, it is only a rational agent – in this case – a philosopher – who can enter a ‘Streit.’For: can you contest without arguing? In SF, Kant then, does what philosophers do best: argue. For our present purposes, against which Kant argues bears less relevance than the fact that Kant is arguing. As for Grice, our Oxonian Kantian -- arguably, fastidious as he was when it came to linguistic usage, and an amateur cricketer, to boot -- who loved a stride – (vide his obituary in The Times: ‘Professional philosopher and amateur cricketer’ -- Grice would have gone straight through the dictionary, if his favourite English Kant (Abbott) missed it. Streit -- a contest? A conflict? Surely nothing like a battle (Kampf, p 157), never mind a war (Krieg, 157).  Indeed, it is under ‘stride,’ that the New English Dictionary observes that ‘the primary meaning of the Teut. root *strĭd- [G. Streit] is assumed to be ‘contention’ or ‘strong effort.’”  “On this view, the entry goes on, “the Eng. sense of the vb., ‘to take long steps’ would be a development from the continental sense ‘to strive’.”  Fascinating semantic phenomena become then evident: “This would in itself be possible, but sense I would remain unexplained.” It is “the *assumption* of a primary sense ‘to diverge’ (cf. Skr. stridh to go astray) [that] would account plausibly on the one hand for the sense ‘to quarrel,’ and the other hand for the sense ‘to straddle,’ from which the sense ‘to take long steps’ would be a [very] natural development.”  As a classicist, Grice would have added L. stridens and strictus, and Gk. στρήνες and στoχεῖoν, for good measure – which would also fall under this ‘primary sense,’ as the N. E. D. has it, ‘to diverge,’ as in ‘to quarrel.’  Kant’s purpose is to chronicle his own Streit, then, with members of the three ‘higher’ faculties. Grice’s Stride differs slightly. In our chronicle of it, we shall start with Grice’s Bildung within his own faculty – assuming the reader will make the extensions to cover the case of Kant. There are a few divergences.  While Kant speaks of the Faculty of Philosophy, and under it, a ‘department’ of Humanistik (p. 45), it was the other way around in the Oxford of Grice’s days. He matriculates in the Faculty of Literae Humaniores (Kant’s Humanistik), only to receive a proper ‘departamental’ education in philosophy once Oxford thought him as having proficiently earned a classical education.  At Oxford, it is Philosophy which was the sub-faculty.  For our purposes, to stride will be to argue – as Kant and Grice engage in philosophical argument – in the metaphysics of morals – with those who reply with theological, juridical, or medical argument – and we see this arguing as being about alternate answers to one same problem.  Grice’s Characterbildung -- Scholarship Boy at Corpus Kant does not dwell on his own formation that gave him the credentials to ‘stride’ with members of the faculties. Grice does.  When Grice did begin his formal stride, by starting what he calls his ‘serious study of philosophy,’ he brings already with him not just a proficiency in the classics – grief and laughing, as Lewis Carroll has it  – that had earned at Clifton, and which, as the head of school, allows him to win a classical scholarship to Corpus in the first place.  Grice’s talent for a dissenting type of rationalism, forstered by his Non-Conformist father was well received at Corpus -- fortunate as Grice was to be tutored alla Kant into the right type of arguing, and learns from him just about all the things which one can be taught by someone else, as distinct from the things which one has to teach oneself. My initial rationalism was developed under his guidance into a belief that philosophical questions are to be settled by reason, that is to say by argument; I learnt also from him how to argue. I liked the slow pace of [our] discussion; and the breath-laden "Ooohhh!" which he would sometimes emit when he had caught you in, or even pushed you into, a patently untenable position (though I preferred it when this ejaculation was directed at someone other than myself. Grice 1986:46.  It felt almost as if the tutor was strangling error at birth, as Grice goes on to describes Socrates’s philosophical midwifery (1986:62).  Grice earns a first class honours in classical moderations, followed by a first lass honours in literæ humaniores, that will lead to the gradus Baccalaurei, and Magisteri in Artibus.  The link with Kant cannot be more direct. While Kant’s systematics of a curriculum is hardly his focus in Der Streit, it is worth pointing to his detailing of it. “[N]ow the philosophy faculty consists of two departments: a department of historical knowledge (including … the humanities [Humanistik]) and a department of pure *rational* knowledge – […]: the metaphysics of nature [Metaphysik der Natur – [Transnaturalia Naturæ]] and of morals [Metaphysik der *Sitten*]” (Kant 45). Kant’s lower faculty then becomes at Oxford ironically the lowest. Humanistik first, sub-faculty of philosophy, under. Admittedly, all modern creation that a philosopher may well ignore. Witness John Locke, who got his B. A. ages earlier, when there was no such thing as neither a Faculty of Literae Humaniores nor a Sub-Faculty of Philosophy under it. It was just all rounded up as the ‘artes’ behind Grice’s degree. And trust a philosopher to find all this bureaucratic complications of faculty and sub-faculty –for which vide Harrison, The History of the University of Oxford, vol. VIII: The Twentieth-Century -- rather all too facile for Grice. If we go again through the dictionray now, under faculty’, another fantastic semantic phenomenon awaits us. “Facultās and facilitās,” the N. E. D states, “[are] originally different forms of the same word, the latter, owing to its more obvious relation to the adj. retain[ing] the primary sense of easiness.” Grice does enter the sub-faculty If Kant spent more than a term outside Königsberg, Grice’s mere gap year as a classics master at Rossall is worth mentioning, as it echoes Kant’s idea of where one’s loyalties lie. In those years Oxford apparently showed little interest to allow the younger generation, who knocking at the door, into the corridors of power -- and Grice finds himself teaching classics at Rossall, some 200 miles north-west of the dreaming spires. Grice manages to re-enter the sub-faculty soon enough, as holder now of two senior scholarship, an open one, and a ‘closed’ one to Merton: the Harmsworth, instituted not long before by the Viscount Rothermere in memory of his son, a casualty of the Great War. It is the Harmsworth that positions Grice at the very core of the sub-faculty – with a Rylean caveat: The Sub-Faculty of Philosophy ≠_def Merton. ‘Faculty,’ and ‘sub-Faculty,’ belong, as Kantotle would say, to one category; Merton to another. If we may paraphrase Ryle:“A foreigner visiting Oxford is shown Merton. He then asks ‘But where is the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy? I have seen where the members of Merton live and the rest. But I have not yet seen the Sub-Faculty of Philosophy in which reside and work the members of your sub-faculty of Philosophy.’Our ‘foregin visitor,’ a calque of Ryle’s, is, in Ryle’s words, “mistakenly allocating” the sub-Faculty of philosophy to the same category as that to which the institution of Merton belongs.” Adapted from Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1949:7. In any case, to Grice, Merton did mean the ‘institutionalisation’ – to echo Ryle -- of his – now philosophical – knowledge, if not a category shift. One in prestige was just around the corner.  Grice’s Privat Dozentur: Tutorial Fellowship at St. John’s This is our high argument. Wordsworth, ‘The Excursion.’ A scholar, after all, is a scholar is a scholar, and, anyway, only the poor learn at Oxford, as Windsor reminds us in A king’s story: the memoirs of H. R. H. the Duke of Windsor, (1951:95). Having achieved the freedom to argue as a scholar – and within the boundaries of your tutor’s ejaculations -- Grice soon achieves the freedom, as a lecturer, to choose about which his own pupil should. And not long after, assuming the tutor role now, the added freedom came to ‘ejaculate’ his objections over his pupil’s weekly paper.  The prestigious St. John’s indeed offers Grice, first, a lectureship, soon to be followed by a whole-time tutorial fellowship – the highest rank a philosopher can achieve at Oxford -- by Kant’s standards. As a university lecturer, Grice is able to combine the freedom that comes with both the private and the public use of reason, as Kant would put it -- as we see Grice engage in indeed the public class – in the sense of  a class ‘open to any member of the university,’ as Oxford defines it.    Unlike a professor, who is never really free – and in fact, ordered to change his college loyalty, s the case might be – Grice’s enduring privat Dozentur gives you that free-wheeling feeling that suited Grice’s personality.  And Grice free-wheeled -- towards psychology, if that of the philosophical sort. His early ‘Negation and privation’ borrows from another first in greats, Gallie, ‘Someone is hearing a noise’ (1936:29) to which Grice applies the ‘privative’ adverb – ‘Someone is not hearing a noise’ -- to analyse, still, in terms of a ‘mental process’ – that of rejection of certitude – towards a different ‘mental process’ that would be realised if that someone would be hearing a noise. “Negation and privation” is followed by a now more serious analysis of Gallie’s original utterance in the affirmative to which Grice applies that idea of a mnemonic mental state that he now borrows from that other B. A. graduate that remained Grice’s mentor: John Locke. For the record, ‘Personal identity’ gets published in Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy – in that order, as the publication was then called (It was only later that psychologists could no longer connect). Grice goes alethic -- the Metaphysik der Natur In Grice’s earliest reflections on meaning he would use a sub-psi operator, attached to an utterance “U signified that A should psi- that p.” The generic psychological predicate he later associates with two (and two) only surface operators, which he called the alethic – sybmolised by Frege’s assertion sign, and associated with ‘credibility’ – and the practical – symbolized by the exclamation mark of the imperative, and associated with desirability. Their directions of fit are opposite. For our present purposes we may regard Grice’s approach to Kant’s metaphysik der natur as involving only the ‘alethic’ variety of argument – where it is in the area of the metaphysic der sitten that the ‘practical’ variety appears on the scene. Konigsberg’s Faculty of Philosophy, as Kant well knew, held just two chairs, and Kant knew he was holding the higher of them – that of ‘der Metaphysik der Natur’. The other, that of ‘der Metaphysik der Sitten’ – or just ‘morals’ (75), fell on Christiani, whom Kant thought should rather be teaching arithmetics. Similarly, at Oxford, only two chairs reign supreme. The higher chair at Oxford being that of the Waynflete Professorship of Metaphysical Philosophy – the lower one that of the White Professor of Moral Philosophy. And Grice liked a Waynflete, if only to disagree with him.Grice certainly did more than disagree with Ryle, who held the chair, and his reluctance to give credit to what Grice in ‘Negation and privation’ has as the very idea of a ‘mental process’. Indeed, in his later ‘Prejudices and predilections; which become the life and opinions of H. P. Grice,’ he would make fun of the very idea, now, of a ‘Rylean agitation’ (1986:74). Grice is striding to make sense of his ‘mental process’. Can it be a mere ‘disposition’? Grice is certain that a Rylean account of intention as disposition would just not do.  Grice developed, on the other hand, a strong rapport with who would succeed Ryle in that august chair. As things go at Oxford, it is not surprising that his former pupil, Strawson, echoes his tutor to the letter and to the spirit Grice’s own reminiscences with his own tutor. In his ‘Intellectual autobiography,’ commissioned for The Library of Living Philosophers (now reprinted in his Freedom and resentment and other essays), we read:“[F]rom [Grice] I learned more of the difficulty and possibilities of philosophical argument than from anyone else” (Strawson 2008:xviii). Windsor’s ‘only the poor learn at Oxford’ is subtly qualified by both Grice and Strawson. For Grice, he did learn from his his tutor, but it wasn’t a knowledge-that: it was a knowledge-how, and specifically, the know-how: the things ‘which one can be taught by someone else, as distinct from the things which one has to teach oneself,’ as enlightened by Kant’s faculty of reason, that is. Parallely with Strawson: what he learned from Grice more ‘than from anyone else’ nothing about stuff -- but just the aethereal ‘difficulty and possibilities of philosophical argument.’ And argue they did. Soon Grice and the future professor of metaphysical philosophy embark in the giving of public classes in seminars on Kantotle’s categories – for, as Kant observes: “Following Aristotle we will call these concepts categories, for our aim is basically identical with his although very distinct from it in execution” (Kant 1998:212). Perhaps Grice’s way of arguing with Strawson, and vice versa – were not everybody’s cup of tea. Quine for one found it too mannered, in the Oxonian way. “Peter and Paul alternated from week to week  in the roles of speaker and commentator. The speaker would read his paper and then the commentator would read his prepared comments. ‘Towardsthe foot of page 9, I believe you said …’ Considered judgement was of the essence; spontaineity was not. Peter and Paul were not outgoing. ‘I’m not sure what to make of that question.’ ‘It depends, I should have thought, on what one means by …’. ‘This is a point that I shall think further about before the next meeting.’ (Quine 1985:248).Another attendee, one of Grice’s examinees later on, echoes Quine. “Grice […] read very fast a long paper which was completely unintelligible to me. Perhaps others were having difficulty also because when the paper finished there was a long, almost religious, hush in the room. Then O. P. Wood raised what seemed to be a very minute point even by Oxford standards. A quick dismissive remark by Grice and the room settled down to its devotions again. At this point [someone] sitting next to me turned and said, ‘Say, what is going on here?’ I said, ‘I’m new round here, and I don’t know the rules of this game. But I think Grice and Strawson are winning.’ As it happens, the attendee eventually won himself. During his examination, with Grice on the board, it was Grice the only one who cared to point out that the examinee’s position would lead to a patent self-contradiction, that Kantian anathema that was channelling Grice’s own tutor’s ‘Ooohhh’. Notwithstanding this affront to conversational reason, the examinee was allowed to pass (Armstrong in Franklin 2003:281). Whether he learned the stuff from Grice or not, Strawson happened to prove a good Kantian himself – in the alethic territory, as his now classic testifies -- and D. F. Pears – like Grice, another first in Greats, managed to enlist both Grice and Strawson into a dynamic trio that graced one of Aunt Beebe’s Third Programmes. The interesting bit about this is that it bridges nicely to Grice’s associations with the other Oxford philosophy chair, that of moral philosophy – for Reality (and Reason) have a voice both in the phenomenal and the noumenal realms. “Kant,” Grice et al. note, is a very ambitious metaphysician, who seeks to secure, at one stroke, the foundations of both science and morality. The whole world of nature, including our ordinary human selves — the whole province of scientific knowledge, in fact — is declared to be mere appearance, in contrast with the world of transcendent reality, the world of things in themselves. From behind the curtain Reality speaks -- giving us, indeed, not information, but a command, a moral imperative. In some admittedly unintelligible way, Reality is within us -- as rational beings; and, with unquestionable authority, it lays down the general form of the moral law which we ought, as ordinary human beings, to obey. Grice, Strawson, and Pears 1957:14  Grice goes practical -- the Metaphysik der Sitten Strictly, it’s best not to overlap, at Oxford or elsewhere. If you are the Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy at Oxford, you better leave Kant’s Metaphysik der Sitten to the only other chair: the White’s Professorship in Moral Philosophy.  This is what Strawson does in The bounds of sense. Unfortunately, Austin never found Kant too congential to have him engage him in the other critique.  With Austin, like Grice, another first in greats, the newly appointed White’s professor, Grice embarks instead on a public class in a seminar on the Ethica Nichomachaea – along with R. M. Hare, yet another first in greats, and indeed successor of Austin to the chair. “If you don’t like that argument, I will give you another” is the curt way Grice summarises Austin’s public use of reason! A flinty experience, in the words of Warnock, who witnessed it all and reports in his fascinating ‘Saturday mornings,’ in Isaiah Berlin et al, Essays on J. L. Austin, Oxford, The Clarendon Press, later reprinted in his Morality and Language, Oxford, Blackwell (Warnock 1973:35). The passage from διαγωγή to ἐπαγωγή (as Grice 1986 would have it) noted by Warnock is interesting as it dwells, yet again, on the rather conviviality that members of the sub-faculty display in Austin’s play-group – where philosophical (or paraphilosophical) argument was co-operative and collaborative – in contrast with the harsh, if mannered, interaction that prevailed in the public occasion of the public seminar – The two ‘publics’ are Warnock’s.  As it happens, Hare, junior to Grice, was much tamer, and would indeed join Grice’s play group upon Austin’s demise, and would later credit Grice for that clever invention of the ‘conversational implicature’ -- in one of the earliest published occurrences of that expression, in the pages of Mind no less (Hare 1967:311). Hare rightly saw the possibilities of the notion in illuminating areas both of theoretical (or alethic, as Grice prefers) and practical reason. After all conversational reason crosses the divide. But Grice gets really Kantian as he strides – with as much success as Kant -- beyond the sub-faculty – into the world. Grice goes theological Imaginary Conversation No 1 -- après Der Streit der Facultäten in drey Absichten §1. “It is possible to commit oneself to a statement which one has not identified: I could commit myself to the contents of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, without knowing what they say.” Grice 1967:1989:56 Would Kant agree? Would the Oxford Regius Professor in Moral and Pastoral Theology agree?  GRICE. I can certainly commit myself to the contents of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England without even knowing what they say. THE THEOLOGIAN. The thirty-nine of them?  GRICE. And in that order, too. THE THEOLOGIAN. Ah, those literae divinae. Perhaps you should let us know what you mean when you say that an article can ‘say’ something. Aren’t we, rather, the utterers, who are supposed to say? GRICE. Touché. But surely I am not forced to any conclusion, to echo Wood, in Bennett and Wood (1961), given that the premise is a blatantly theological, and dogmatic at that!  THE THEOLOGIAN. Well, it is certainly not philosophical twaddle -- to echo Kant: Was ihr Philosophen da schwahet wußte ich längst von selbst (48). This is the faith that your king defends. GRICE. A bit like Tertullian? THE THEOLOGIAN.Well, he believed because it was absurd, whereas some do not, because they are. GRICE. I see. THE THEOLOGIAN. In fact, it was perhaps because of Kant – “I have never encountered fanaticism, but rather free [freies], unprejudiced reasoning [Räsonnement] and judgment in religious matters” (76) – that Oxford did drop the requirement to obligate a scholar upon matriculation to commit himself to the contents of the Thirty-Nine Articles on the basis that to expect that he would even understand them – even if read to them – was thought perfectly ridiculous and offensive to common sense, as any familiar with Hansard (1835) will let you know.   GRICE. Too bad for Hansard. Well, in any case, let me express to you how glad I am that you are familiar with that rather obscure tract by one half of my favourite philosophers: Kantotle a. k. a. Ariskant, I mean. It may be argued that Grice, unlike Kant, is using Theology as an excuse. But wait until you see how he uses Jurisprudence. [For further references of Grice going theological: vide Warner, “Philosophy, implicature, and liturgy.”] Grice goes juridical Second Imaginary Conversation No. 2 – après Der Streit der Facultäten in drey Absichten §2.  It might be argued that Grice’s reference to the thirty-nine articles is rhetorical, rather than theological. But then, the same can be argued about his attitude towards the august Oxford’s Corpus Professorship of Jurisprudence. As it happens, Grice knew Hart, well – and vice versa. It is not surprising then that, of all possible examples of a ‘suspect’ manoeuvre in argumentation, Grice would pick on Hart: “It seems a plausible suggestion that part of what is required in order that some agent may be correctly said to have performed some operation carefully is that the agent should have been receptive to circumstances in which the venture might go astray […] I have heard it maintained by Hart that such a condition as I have sketched is insufficient.” 1967/1989:7 But is it? If a theologian can appeal to the professor of theology to settle the dispute with Grice, a well-appointed judge can likewise appeal to the professor of jurisprudence to settle the dispute here. GRICE. I am not sure that I would go as far as to say that part of the sense – Fregean sense, I mean – of  what Donoghue said of Stevenson – that he did it ‘carefully’ -- is that the Stevenson was receptive to circumstances in which his venture might have gone astray. THE JUDGE. Well, but he was cross-examined. GRICE. Co-operatively? THE JUDGE. We did the best we could. And it seemed obvious that Donogue’s behaviour did improve our understanding of a general duty of care – on which the Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence has expanded GRICE. But couldn’t his use of ‘carefully’ have been misled by the fact that he was aware that, in cross-examination, a principle of conversational helpfulness is only aped? THE JUDGE. We don’t use that verb here. GRICE. I mean. It’s all about the entailment. Hart seems to be arguing that any statement about what the law has as ‘duty of care’ entaisl Hart’s suspect condition. To do something CAREFULLY would ENTAIL, to use Moore’s jargon, that the doer's pre-cautionary steps are reasonable, and that, if the steps are unreasonable, it is false that the deed was CAREFULLY executed. THE JUDGE. Whereas I take it that you would say it is true? GRICE. Indeed, if misleadingly so.  THE JUDGE. Listen. Whatever the Professor of Jurisprudence may have hinted – and as even Kant acknowledges in Der Streit der Facultäten, it is the law of the land that we are invoking here – not the philosopher’s twaddle. GRICE. Case close. Or is it? Allow me in any case, your Highness, to express to you how glad I am that you are so familiar with that rather obscure tract by one half of my favourite philosophers – Kantotle a. k. a. Ariskant, I mean. Hart was perhaps the professor of jurisprudence who took Grice more seriously. Witness the depth of his oeuvre on the very topic of freedom in publications such as ‘Signs and words -- Critical notice of John Holloway, Language and Intelligence. The Philosophical Quarterly; Acts of will and legal responsibility, in Pears, with Hart, A. M. Honore Causation and the law. Oxford, and with S. N. Hampshire on Decision, intention, and certainty for Mind. Grice goes medical Imaginary Conversation No. 3 – après Der Streit der Facultäten in drey Absichten §3. Perhaps Grice got the most argumentative with the medic who would – allegedly on scientific grounds – rely on what the Oxford Regius Professor of Medicine was saying. “Given that the patient is to be relieved of cephalalgia,” Grice notes in his third Immanuel Kant memorial lecture “– an ailment, a common symptom of which is headache – and that he is of blood group O, the patient must take aspirin.” But “given that he is ALSO to be relieved of gasteroplexis – an ailment, a common symptom of which is stomach cramp --, the patient must be given electromixosis -- the very latest thing in this region of therapy” (2001:86). Grice is here concerned with the logical form of the medic’s resolutions – which Grice has as being of the form ‘Acc (⊦Fx, !Gx)’ where ‘Acc’ stands not for Kant’s acceptance (Annahme, Annehmung – from annehmen, and indeed cognate with both English nim and Gk. nemein – N. E. D.: “the root nem- is prob. Identical with that of Gr. νέμειν to deal out, distribute, hold, possess, occupy) but for the weaker acceptability. As Kant uses the notion in SF his focus is on the collocation ‘to accept freely’. GRICE: So he should be relieved from both cephalalgia and gasteroplexis – and you decide he must be given electromixosis? THE MEDIC. Most definitely, as the Regius Professor of Medicine. GRICE. But aren’t you taking – or accepting – Kant’s Annhame – far too literally? I am reminded of what Aristotle indicates re iatrikos 1986. THE MEDIC. What do you mean?GRICE. Kant restricts ‘acceptance’ to one’s personal, free, decision. Not as a matter of a medic’s command. THE MEDIC. Well, the patient may decide NOT to be given electromixosis. But, again, if I understood Kant’s Streit der Facultaten §3 correctly, my action, qua noumenal, hardly pertain to the phenomenal, or the events as they develop.  GRICE. I see. I hope he’ll accept your acceptance. And in any case, allow me to express to you how glad I am you are so familiar with that rather obscure tract by one half of my favourite philosopher: Kantotle, a. k. a. Ariskant, that is.  Grice goes free Kant’s theological-juridical-medical rolled into one, as an argument pro freedom, rather tha against the free-sceptic, against whom he had been arguing in public seminars at Oxford with another double Greats, Woozley (Grice 1946). Grice’s solution to the Kantian problem. It is obvious that Grice will look for some unity behind Kant’s ‘drey Absichten’ And he finds it. It is best to relate his finding to his treatment of what he then calls the Kantian problem. Like, Kant does in annehmen, Grice sees in ‘accept’ the link that will allow him to cross the alethic-practical devide. An earlier manifestation of this point is in his annual philosophical lecture for the British Academy. “A degree of analogy between believing and intending has to be admitted. We can use the ‘acceptance’ to express a generic concept applying both to a case of intention and to a case of belief,” while he grants that he has not “provided any account of the nature of the non-evidential considerations which may be adduced to justify such a statement, nor a fortiori of the reasons why such considerations might legitimately be thought to succeed in justifying such a statement” (1971:275).   Following Kantotle, rather, Grice proposes to initiate the construction of a concept of rationality bounded to the idea of freedom in a sequence of ‘living beings.’ Admittedly, he allows, unlike Kant, for the concept of ‘freedom’ to apply to the purely physical world – his example is that of the ‘free fall’ and the ‘freely moving.’ He is on firmer grounds as he develops the freedom associated with the vegetal kingdom, very much echoing Kant’s reference to the ‘blade of grass’ in Critik derUrtheilskraft.  As he reaches the Homo sapiens sapiens, Grice feels that, to be endowed with a ‘strong’conception of freedom, the Human needs to transubstantiate into a person. Mosquitoes may be free, but surely they don’t need be rational. It is only then that we reach that stage that Homo sapiens sapiens becomes a Person, and a Metaphysician at that, when the creature is liberated not merely from any external cause, but from every factive cause “being governed instead by reasons, or non-factive causes. It is at this stage that rational activity and intentions appear on the scene” (1986b:113). And that is so because, while the reasoning is of the end-means analysis,,the end is one which is, in Grice’s parlance, “freely adopted or pursued” by the agent. And Grice takes the task seriously. His ‘acceptance’ is further to analysed in terms, not so much of Stout’s certainties, but of Prichard’s ‘willing’ as her Prichard’s “Acting, Willing, Desiring.” The formulations by Grice are made within the context of wat he calls ‘philosophical psychology,’ and ends in the compilation of a very general manual – “which might not improperly be called Immanuel.” And Grice loved the Grundlegung, that he saw as foreshadowing Prichard:The notion of action will be what is required for actions to provide within the framework of a theory of conduct, a basis for the assessment of the agents to whom they are imputable. But for that purpose the all-important elements are the presence of will directed towards the realization of a state of affairs specially associated with the action, accompanied perhaps by belief or conviction that that state of affairs has been, or is being realized; whether the realization is actually forthcoming seems to be, in comparison, relatively unimportant as far as moral assessment is concerned, though it may be of greater consequence in other related forms of assessment, such as legal assessment. As Kant wrote in the Grundlegung, Even if it should happen that owing to the special disfavour of fortune, or the niggardly provision of a step-motherly nature, this will should wholly lack power to accomplish its purpose, if in its greatest efforts it should yet achieve noth-ing, and there should remain only the good will (not, to be sure, a mere wish, but the summoning of all means in our power), then, like a jewel, it would still shine by its own light, as a thing which has its whole value in itself (Abbott edition, p. 11). And, no doubt mutatis mutandis something  comparable could be said about the bad will. Grice 1986:130.Compulsion and chance will occur, since Grice sees akrasia – in both the alethic and practical varieties – are essential for the very understanding of a rational being. “We may get a judgement that one wills that p without the willing that p, and we may get willing that p without judging that one wills that p -- indeed, with judging that one does not will that p.” Grice 1991:155. Grice’s symbolism actually helps in elucidating what after may have been after in his search for a logic of freedom. There are “cases,” Grice says, “in which my lower nature interferes; inclinations, or some other disturbing factors, stop me from judging or willing that p, but do not stop me from willing that I will or judge that p, a higher-order state which may or may not in the end win out. Such cases of incipient incontinence of will or judgement are endemic to the constitution of a rational being. It seems to me, then, that the "B' cases should be allowed. Since, however, my present prime concern is with acceptability rather than with acceptance, and since it seems that what would justify accepting ⊦_Ap (or !_Ap) would also justify accepting ⊦_Bp (or !_Bp), and, again, vice versa, I think we can, within the scope of "it is acceptable that", safely omit the subscripts.” (Grice 2001:72).If Kant thought he would allow philosophy being the ancilla theologiae – even if the torch-bearing one -- Grice was never so ready to go, as many of the philosophers of his generation were so ready to endorse a mythical Einheit der Wissenschaft, with philosophy as the regina scientiarum if that will be the mere queen consort (Grice 1986) – (It is as a result of this disquisition by Grice that he gets the complaint by Bennett to the Clarendon Press for inserting Grice’s references to two real queens (Victoria and Elizabeth II) and two real queen consorts (Anne and Elizabeth the Queen Mother): ‘surely irrelevant royalty has no place in an index’. The philosopher needs to account both for cases of reasonableness and free from unreasonableness.In his stride against an eliminationist type of psychology – his science of choice -- Grice finds support in his idea of linguistic botanizing. If a classical education (Grice’s phrase – Grice 1986 --- indeed it may well be that his proficiency “demands a classical education”) as the one he received entitled him to the proficiency of linguistic use, Grice was more than willing to utilise – and would look for collocations where ‘free’ interacts with ‘reason’. This was more than it was for Flew, one of Grice’s earliest pupils, than a mere application of the paradigm-case argument (Flew (1954). Grice’s point being that the concept IS there – only to be re-constructed by the philosopher from τα λεγόμενα of οἱ πολλοί. Grice 1987. His defence was for Common Sense and Common Language. Grice lists ‘alcohol-free,’ ‘free for lunch’, and ‘free-wheeling’ – to which one can add Epictetus’s “ἑμιελευθερός” – as in ‘semi-free for lunch’ -- along with the definitions ‘liberal’, ‘acting without restriction,’ and ‘frank in ‘conversation’  -- “all any gentleman needs to know” as Grice puts it. And who could be more liberal than Grice when, apres Locke, claims he can invent a language, “call it Deutero-Esperanto” and set out what is proper”? (Grice 1989). As with Kant’s SF, behind it all lies for Grice the cri-de-coeur to give “attention to the idea of freedom” such that it will call for the search for a “rational justification for the adoption or abandonment of ultimate ends.” Whatever the difficulties involved in such an enterprise, if it is not fulfilled, our freedom threatens to dissolve into mere compulsion or chance. 1986:113. Fully liberated, free-wheeling rational agents will do as they will – even flouting the maxims and principles that they impose as determining their conduct – “My lips are sealed” is Grice’s answer to Kant’s “Is telling the truth a perfect obligation?” even if founded on a conversational manual that to echo Kant Grice calls the IMMANUEL, where maxims are ordered by the Kantian quartette of categories. For the maxims, too, are freely chosen. And the devil of scientism who happens to be free-sceptic can only lose his audience if what he asks is a total breakdown of this type of reason. Since it is only in conditions of total freedom that the rational agent can assign value. Ultimately, this “attention to the idea of freedom may lead us to the need to re-solve or dissolve the most important unsolved problem in philosophy, namely: how we can be at one and the same time members both of the phenomenal [subvenient] and of the noumenal [supervening] world. Or, to put the issue less cryptically: to settle the internal conflict between one part of our rational nature, the scientific part which calls (or seems to call) for the universal reign of deterministic law, and that other part which insists that not merely moral responsibility but every variety of rational belief demands exemption from just such a reign. 1986b:113.Grice would on occasion say that there is ‘no conflict’ between Eddington’s two tables – since scientific and philosophical purposes are distinct. Like other philosophers of his generation, Grice engaged in the complexities of a fully Kantian concept of freedom with passion. His seminars with D. F. Pears and J. F. Thomson left a mark in what is rather derogatorily termed as the ‘ordinary-language’ philosophy of freedom – -- vide Pears, in his Freedom and the Will, Pears, Pears and Thomson, Pears and Strawson, on Freedom and knowledge, Pears and Hampshire and Gardiner – all members of Grice’s play group -- where, as Mundle notes, by ‘ordinary language’, Oxonians mean ‘anyone who has earned a first at Greats.’ (Mundle 1971). And the wealth of Grice’s material in The H. P. Grice Papers still await the Kantian scholar to review – vide Guyau, Hanna and Moore. Grice once ended up a lecture with a caveat: “I have some hope that today’s offering might provide an adequate starting-point for one of those interminable sequences of revisions of which serious theoretical thought seems so largely to consist.” (1991:91). Fitting in that endless conversation that Kant’s utopia promises, and promoting exercise of argument, and like Kant, he infuses philosophy with life. As Kant and Grice leave the scene with questions “bristling with unsolved or incompletely solved problems.” Yet Grice adds: I do not find this thought daunting. If philosophy generated no new problems it would be dead, because it would be finished; and if it recurrently regenerated the same old problems it would not be alive because it could never begin. So those who still look to philosophy for their bread-and-butter should pray that the supply of new problems never dries up. Grice 1986:106. As we draw to the close of this exploration into the theoretical foundations of Grice’s conversational model, it is fitting to reflect on the remarkable breadth and depth achieved by both Grice and his interpreter, J. L. Speranza. Their combined efforts have not only illuminated the intricate mechanisms underlying conversational phenomena, but have also traced these mechanisms far beyond the boundaries of the philosophy of language, reaching into the domains of philosophy of action, philosophical psychology, morality, and rationality. Grice’s framework, with its careful attention to the conditions and structures of meaning, intention, and interpretation, has provided scholars with tools to understand how conversation is embedded within broader patterns of human conduct. Speranza’s interpretive work has further enriched this understanding, drawing connections that reveal the relevance of conversational principles in the study of agency, the formation of motives, the evaluation of moral choices, and the exercise of reason. Together, they have shown that conversational theory is not an isolated discipline, but a vital part of the philosophical inquiry into what it means to act, to intend, to judge, and to value. It is through such interdisciplinary reach that Grice’s legacy continues to inspire new generations of scholars. To the reader who has patiently engaged with these arguments and followed the thread of inquiry through its many facets, sincere congratulations are due. Your perseverance and intellectual curiosity are the very qualities that sustain philosophical progress and ensure that the conversation, in the deepest sense, remains open and fruitful. May your continued study carry forward the spirit of dialogue and discovery that Grice and Speranza exemplified, and may you find in these pages both guidance and encouragement for your own philosophical journey. Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?” “Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” “That’s all,” said the King. “These were the verses the White Rabbit read:—” Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, London: Macmillan and Co., 1865, Chapter XII, “Alice’s Evidence”. Chapter 10. Our opening chapter of  Part IV (the last part) deals mainly with those Oxonian (Vadum Boum) English born (in their majority) philosophers with whom Grice did not directly interact – but who have felt his influence. It is my belief that as a national treasure as Grice is, it is at Vadum Boum that his heritage shines, -- and those associated with Sorbonne or Bologna may at most extract the implicatum for personal pleasure. Chapter 10 will be followed by a chapter 11 specifically on Bolognese-oriented philosopehrs (having skipped Sorbonne) and the whole study will conclude with prospects for pragmatics in chapter 12. Give more body to the centre of the paragraph adding info you can summarise from the study.  Our opening chapter of Part IV—the final section—primarily examines Oxonian (Vadum Boum) philosophers, mainly English-born, who did not directly engage with Grice yet were influenced by his thought. While Grice's legacy is celebrated nationally, his impact is most evident at Vadum Boum; those linked to Sorbonne or Bologna tend to appreciate his work more for individual interest than scholarly development. The study shows that these Oxonian philosophers have integrated aspects of Gricean theory into debates on meaning and intentionality, even without direct contact. Chapter 10 is followed by chapter 11, focusing on philosophers from Bologna (after omitting Sorbonne), and the work concludes with an outlook on pragmatics in chapter 12. Grice says that conversations are open-ended in that you never know when they will end. We have to rational (or at least reasonable) creatures in front of each other. When is the time for the pre-sequence, like: “I have a train to catch?” Echoing, I think, fom G. N. Leech, not a philosopher himself, which clearly shows in his breaking the Grice maxim: principles of pragmatics should not be multiplied beyond necessity – I think he makes a passing reference to a phrase I liked: retrospects, and prospects, or prospects and retrospects, I forget. This is anti-Griceian, who is ONLY on ‘retrospect’ (vide his ‘Retrospective epilogue’ – what can be more retrospective than an epilogue! By comparison, his PRE-face takes only three pages! The idea is: suppose we consider the PROSPECTS first – the student – the Griceian I mean – should take a RETROSPECTS-view, should consider the retrospects. It is said that analytical philosophy has no history and that it is best to leave a brain under formation – as Grice’s was when The Oxford Gazette announced in 1930 that he had obtained the scholarship in classics for Corpus Christi. Grice is too good about Hardie, when he compares him to his (Gice’s, not Hardie’s) father – a failed businessman, but a fine musician --. For from Herbert Grice Grice got life, and the ability to reason. From Hardie, the scot who tutored the ‘man’ that Grice was – Oxonian dons NEVER use other than ‘man’ to refer to his tutees – Grice learned ‘those things that you have to learn from another than learn by yourself!’ Mill would disagree, and a few other independent researchers. As the dependent researcher that Hardie was – earning his bread and butter teaching lit. hum. to Grice – Hardie was MOULDING Grice. It is a good thing that when Grice became the moulder – even pre-War, with tutees like P. F. Strawson and A. G. N. Flew – he could NOT be less Hardieian! (These were the years were the Scots were invading south of the Berwick. They may worship St. Andrews, but Grice had to suffer a Scot as tutor at Corpus Chrsti, and indeed, one reason why, The Oxford Gazette tells us, Grice was confirmed, even before his fellowship, to an internal lectureship at St. John’s – was that he could relieve of some weight to that OTHER SCOT – of the same generation as Hardie – that was at the time the ONLY TUTORIAL FELLOW IN PHILOSOPHY at St. John’s: J. D. Mabbott. Mabbott would indeed survive Grice, as would Hardie – longevity of the highlands – and Mabbott indeed go on to praise Grice, in the typical, rather fake way, philosophers adopt when writing memories. Being read ‘Oxford memories’ by Mabbott, Grice exclaimed: “Good old Mab, I never thought for a second he thought so highly of me!”  We have reached a level where we should be more or less clear about the PHILOSOPHICAL IMPORT of H. P. Grice’s theory of conversation, and the seminal role it played in Oxford philosophy in the twentieth century. We have presented, in Part I: THE GENERAL FRAMEWORK; in part II the various conversational illustrations along the parade of publicationsn and unpublications with which Grice delighted his audience, and have inspected the major philosophical consequences of his type of rationalism invoked in his substantial theory underlying conversation. So it is time for some conclusions.Grice has not been fortunate in this exegeses. He says he was, but just out of politeness. Oxford philosophy (and more importantly, NON-Oxford philosophy, and NON-OXFORD NON-philosophy) being what it is, that was bound to happen.As Grice says, he suffered his whole life the ANTAGONISTIC mode of philosophising: the epagogue. Whenever Grice felt challenged he forgot his native Birmingham-area accent and appealed to classical Greek. “I was never into epagogue; I am all for DIA-gogue!” But Oxford philosophy is NOT made of diagogue. It is a REQUIREMENT for passing the simplest examination in philosophy – forget other disciplines: you cannot argue history or brain science – that you should take a CRITICAL stance: critique. And critique is what Grice got.  In all fairness the conversations in which Grice found himself philosophically engaging were not just his contemporaries. He indeed had praised to treat those who are dead and great as dead and living. So, it is worth considering his interactions which Grice undertook ‘in theory’. Under this group we should consider not his engagement with Athenian Dialectic (the old-gone trio of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) but more contemporary figures, too. An important figure to consider is John Locke, associated with Oxford to the point that the John Locke Prize was possibly the most valuable prize that Oxford could offer. Grice sets the record straight in his proem to his John Locke Lectures. He confesses he had applied for the Prize on TWO occasions – failed on both. The references to Locke by Grice fall in two groups. The more tangential one in one respect is Grice’s obsession with that passage in Essay concerning Humane Understanding where ‘humane’ as Locke was, Locke explores ‘person,’ ‘man,’ ‘parrot.’ Grice takes this up in ‘Personal identity’ and never let it go. Up to his memoir in ‘Prejudcies and predilections’ Grice is still considering what he know sees as a TRANSSUBSTANTIATION, where the human (or man) has to turn himself into a metaphysician and become a person. The less tangential (is it?) concern is what has been called the TELEMENTATIONISM. In the European tradition of philosophy, any interest in communication – via signs which were arbitrary – was the place where the philosopher could expand on how useful – the utility – of it all. Homo would not be the rational animal if Homo were uncapable of ‘letting his companions’ know about his ‘ideas,’ which stand for thing. This telementational model pervades Grice’s programme, and his contribution to the debate was his rather elaborate functionalism that allows the philosopher to describe such an ‘idea’ in terms which do not rely on ‘the semantic.’ For such a manoeuvre, he needs to disqualify Locke on some respects: words will not be signs (as Locke claims) and it’s best to stick to conversational moves which may display different forms – not necessarily ‘linguistic’ or verbal –: a gesture (like Grice’s frown) will do. It’s the utterance that matters, of the UTTERER, which becomes Grice’s equivalent of the de-Saussure SIGNIFICANS. Locke was being popular at Oxford due mainly to the work of a practitioner of this type of ordinary language philosophy: Ronald Hall, who upon leaving Oxford, dedicated the rest of his life to the edition of The Locke Newsletter, so Grice knew where the Oxford tradition shone best. Consider Wilson. Grice takes a look at Wilson’s contribution as late as 1987, the year before Grice’s death. He brings Cook Wilson as a relativist in the sense that truth would be too much of a standard for him, and ‘taken for granted’ seems to do just fine. Grice will refer to Cook Wilson’s Statement and inference when considering the conversational role of various ‘connectors,’ notably ‘if’ as in COOK WILSON. But who did kill Cock Robin. FAIRBOROUGH. It wasn’t the Wren.Grice considers those conversational exchanges as conditional in form. Cook Wilson is led to engage in a piece of conditional reasoning – elimination. If it wasn’t the Wren it was most likely the Sparrow. A third occasion refers to Grice’s memoir, where Grice cherished the encounter with a rear admiral at Strawson’s college of Magdalen and the talk that ensued after diner in the common room.GRICE. Cook Wilson. I still find his STATEMENT and INFERENCE engagement.REAR ADMIRAL. I cannot say I would appreciate Cook Wilson the way YOU do, I was just his tutee. But we just loved him.GRICE. What was about him that you found particularly of reverential devotion? REAR ADMIRAL. The thing he SAID things. He would out of the blue, provide all the confort I needed by a simple tautological remark like ‘What we know we know.’ It would be more difficult to find a conversational illustration where ‘What we know we know’ finds a place in conversation. When formulating his principle, ‘Make your contribution such as is required by the purpose of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.’ Grice found that patent tautologies like ‘Women are women’ or ‘War is war’ may play a judicious role qua conversational moves. Ditto for ‘What we know we know.’ COOK WILSON’S DAUGHTER. I didn’t know that. COOK WILSON. You do know. DAUGHTER. True. I know. We know. COOK WILSON. What we know we know. DAUGHTER. That, too. Thank you, Father.  From the closests of his colleagues. From the closest of his affiliations. One should be a good conversational example. Grice’s polemic with Austin. Admittedly, provocative intent and all, Grice is postulating the problem wrongly: linguistic botanising does NOT mean ‘going through the dictionary and believing all that the dictionary says!’ But the conversation on record went: GRICE: Byzantine. I’m feeling byzantine.AUSTIN. I can’t see what you mean. GRICE. Well, if you would, you’d have better eyes than most. What I meant, I followed your advice, and did go through the dictionary. Recall your point that the way to get to the kernel of what ‘feeling Adj.’ means is to go through the Oxford Little Dictionary. Well, I had to stop at ‘BY-‘ all combinations made perfect logical sense to me. AUSTIN. Perhaps you should have tried the Concise! GRICE: Austin. My point: I don’t give a hoot what the dictionary says (APPALLED SILENCE and Pause IN THE HALL OF FAME OF THE PLAYGROUP) AUSTIN: And that’s where you make your big mistake, if you ask me. The problem is that nobody was! Grice’s polemics with Austin are long-going, and they are some of them on record by Grice himself. My favourite being Grice’s treatment of Austin in the ‘Prolegmena’ to ‘Logic and Conversation’. Grice credits Austin with providing a general formula to Ryle’s even more pedantic approach to ‘willingness’. ‘A did A M-ly’. But Austin cares to distinguish between the implicature and what is NOT the implicature, and that is that.  Grice’s interactions with the senior group led by Ryle did not fare any better. In the obituary of Ryle written by Owen for The Aristotelian Society, Grice could read Ryle’s impressions about this. Ryle was familiar with Grice in the wrong way. Austin gone, Ryle thought he would recover the lustre that Austin had taken from him as the Grand Master of Ordinary-Language Philosophy. In retrospect, and only on Ryle’s death, Owen tells the truth: Ryle despised Austin and his sequel, and by that he meant Grice, who had the cheek to continue those infamous meetings of the Saturday-moning play group. By the time, transportation to London had made easier, and few would stay at Oxford for the week-end anyway (“Week-end? What IS a week-end?” Grice is clear that Austin never cared for the play group more than he should and that the Saturday-morning meetings were held ‘during term time’. By the time Austin was gone, there was no such thing as ‘term time,’ and life beings at Oxford Circus! Austin was the leader of the play group but not his only component. Indeed, no history of H. P. Grice’s philosophy of language and communication could be to some complete unless it discussed the consequences, as per conclusions, with regard to the interactions by Grice with other members than Austin from this group. It is interesting that, when it comes to Grice’s own CONTRIBUTIONS to the minutes of Austin’s play group the record is scares. We have at least one interaction. AUSTIN: Byzantine? GRICE. Yes, that’s how I’m feeling. And I did the work, I went through the dictionary. To be honest, I don’t give a hoot what the dictionary says. AUSTIN. And that’s where you make your big mistake. Austin’s response didn’t exactly hurt Grice, and in fact Grice prided of the fact that he had the courage to challenge Austin on that. Of course Austin’s point is NOT, when it comes to botany, to go ‘through the dictionary and believe everything it says,’ which is Grice’s paraphrase. The dictionary doesn’t DEFINE, for one. And ordinary language rather grows from the native competence of its speakers, not from the pages of the Little Oxford Dictionary. A second interaction of Grice-Austin in the play group – or Grice’s interaction in the playgroup simpliciter – has made into the pages in print. In some versions, the credit to Grice is not given. Grice repairs the mistake. When recalling the incident, it is best to provide a conversational illustration of what such para-philosophical conversation on a Saturday morning – ‘when plain philosophers meet to philsophise,’ as Gellner had it – might have gone: AUSTIN. That’s not really philosophically important. GRICE. I fail to see how you draw such a sharp line between what is philosophically important and what is not. AUSTIN. I challenge then, Grice, to bring for next Saturday morning an example of a philosophical UNimportant remark. The fact that the discussion took four weeks is the whole point of the punch line. The next week Grice brings the requested example. GRICE. It has been observed that the modifier ‘very’ applies to any adjective you choose. However, the grammatically analogous modifier ‘highly’ seldom does so. ‘Highly stupid’ does not ring a bell in me as a piece of ordinary language. AUSTIN. Your point? GRICE. I would claim that the distinction in our use of ‘highly’ versus ‘very’ fits your identification of a realm of conversational examples that while INTERESTING, display NO PHILOSOPHICAL interest. Or to use your preferred sobriquet. It is UNimportant. AUSTIN. Important UNimportant important. I was never good at judging what is IMPORTANT simpliciter, never mind PHILOSOPHICALLY important.Grice recalls the anecdote with wisdom and humour. Given that the occasion had been treated as the epitome of the Play Group – and by extension, the whole Oxford programme in ordinary language philosophy – frivolity, Grice felt like justifying both Austin and Grice in retrospect. When taking out of context, one would think that Austin and Grice were discussing about proper and improper uses of ‘highly’ versus proper and improper uses of ‘very.’ But, as Grice makes it clear, the situation was other, and rather compared to how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. The mediaeval question was aimed at a clarification in the analysis of materia extensa. Similarly, Grice goes on, the very/highly debate was merely put forward as an EXEMPLIFICATION towards the identification of an alleged distinction between a question or problem which, while important per se, would not qualify as having any PHILOSOPHICAL importance whatsoever. Grice confesses that the debates on issues on the Saturday morning was replaced by another one without any clear sign that they have reached some level of success in answering the original question! In chronological terms, the figure of A. D. WOOZLEY is figure in this respect. He had participated in Austin’s old play group (that lasted only two years) and joined Austin in 1946 in the ‘new’ play group. Grice was familiar with Woozley pre-war as Woozley was editing pieces by Reid that would become helpful to Grice in his ‘Personal identity.’ Interestingly, after the war, in the very 1946, Grice – who was Woozley’s senior – organized with him a joint seminar on ‘Common sense and scepticism.’ It was a long seminar, and Grice’s role was that of attacking the sceptic. In retrospect, Grice saw those interactions with affection, and he thought that the objection he posed to the sceptic in the very terms of the theory of conversation (communication in reasonable terms) should prove ‘fatal.’ While in the later version of ‘Meaning,’ Grice does not consider the quantificational or predicate-calculus or propositional-calculus logical form of the message that is being communicated, the analysans being always of the form VOLAJUDBJUDAp in ‘Common Sense and scepticism’ Grice considers VOLAJUDBJUDA(p & ~p). There is an Eleatic side to this. What if the sceptic is intending his addressee to engage in a CONTRADICTION? This is what Grice leads the sceptic to be precisely doing. The figure of G. A. PAUL is important to consider in connection with Grice. When Grice cared to list the members of the play group – in the only passage where he does – the list is surely not complete. He is just pointing to the fact that each member displayed ‘such an independence of mind’ that any idea that they were just DISCIPLES of Austin, or his apostles, would be silly. And it is here that PAUL gets a mention. When in “Retrospective Epilogue” Grice explores the motivations and underlying unity of his various philosophical efforts – this was the year before his death –he seems to suggest that it was Paul’s ‘Is there a problem about sense data?” in Mind that was in the air thick enough for Grice and Austin and the more junior Warnock to realise that the philosophy of perception was a topic worth pursuing for its general value, and not just as a discipline within epistemology, as it is often done in the Continent, which is always less empiricist. Paul’s career was brief. An amateur sailor, he died after a frigid incursion in the North Sea.  Consider Strawson. It would be difficult to find a peer to Grice’s talent other than Strawson. As a tutee, and later colleague, he provided foil to Grice’s concoctions, and the interesting things are two: that a tutee would be so engaged with his tutor – by law, an Oxford tutee loses all interest in his tutor, as Grice did with his own, Hardie – once the examinations are over. The other is that the tutor (Grice) showed an interest in what his former tutee had to say (most tutors don’t) and perhaps unethically, came to critique him! The divergences became deeper with the years. From the early credit by Strawson to Grice in Introduction to Logical Theory, a full programme in Strawsonian truth-value gap semantics-sans-implicature became an option to some. The Gricieans had to keep defending a world-view without truth-value gaps. But Strawson was five years Grice’s junior. There were other philosophers in between. One is even older than Austin: Hart. Hart has been studied critically – notably in a festcrhift with a contribution by G. P. Baker (Gordon Parks Baker, if you musn’t) on ‘defeasibility’ and meaning. The biographer of H. L. A. Hart has examined the role Grice played in Hart’s development: he intimated him! This is curious since in Hart’s letter to Morton White, Hart wants (uninvitedly) warn White that Grice ‘is a character’ that needs prompting, ‘as we give it to him at Oxford – so please do when he visits.’ Hart manages to quote from Grice in an obscure review to Holloway’s Language and Intelligence that appeared in the pages of The Philosophical Quarterly some five years earlier than when Strawson finally decided that it was time to publish Grice’s piece. Hampshire is another interesting character, and his association with Hart seems natural. They have a joint essay together, on intention and certainty, which was the trigger for Grice’s own ‘intention and UN-certainty’. But Hampshire knew Hart from well before then, having socialsed, as Grice did not, with Austin and Berlin and four other – the group of six – at the Tuesday meetings at All Souls. Hampshire’s Thought and Action, a masterpiece with some boring sides to it – shows some similarity with Grice in the general framework of the consideration of intention, and behaviour, with emphasis on the point about trust, and co-ooperation. While Hampshire and Grice interacted occasionally after the war – they would dine at each other colleges at least once a month – their secific credits are sparse. Nowell-Smtih is an intersteing character. Just one year younger than Grice, he possibly felt all the embarrassment in the fact that while HE did coin the idea of a ‘contextual implication’ and went on to catalogue the ‘rules’ of trust, and relevance – he is only recalled by Grice by his clumsy interations with Austin, which Grice provides in detail. FIRST INTERACTION. Nowell-Smith. Bribe! The idea! Austin. Well, that’s what happened, if we are to trust Gardiner. The Greek tutee was just bribing Gardiner for a free pass to avoid the Friday tutorial so he could head straight to London on the Friday train. Nowell-Smith. And what did Gardiner say. Austin. Well, that’s the point. What would YOU say? Nowell-Smith. That I don’t take bribes on principle. Austin. Would you? I think ‘No thanks’ may even more than that Greek bastard deserves! SECOND INTERACTION. Nowell-Smith: Nobody speaks to confuse his audience – unless you are a poet, you know. Austin. What do you mean. Nowell-Smith. I specifically mean Donne. What can be more Unintelligible than ‘From the imagined four-coners of the earth, angels your trumpets blow.’ Austin. What about it? Nowell-Smith: I find ‘imagined four-corners of the eatth’ unparseable. Austin. Your problem. Surely Donne could count on a smarter audience. By importantion you get the imagined out of the clause, and get: angels, blow your trumpets from what LESS INTELLIGENT people than me would refer to as the four corners of the earth. Grice’s problem with Nowell-Smtih was  deeper than that. If Grice does use ‘rule’ for ‘maxim,’ when referring to the ‘rules of the conversational game’ he knew deep down that they are not RULES as cricket rules are rules, or auction-bridge rules are rule (he mastered the game) or chess rules are rules (he also mastered this game) or football rules are rules (Grice captained the football team at Corpus for a year). While Grice has a full panoply of concepts to see how his rules of the conversational game are only METAPHORICAL THUS called, he was never sure Nowell-Smith did. In any case, Nowell-Smith never stopped being the empiricist he was, and would have hardly swallowed the Kantian weight that Grice needed to impose to the rules for them STOPPING from being arbitrary, constitutive, procedures of a given coordination activity and become part (if not parcel) of the human faculty that makes a person a human: reason itself, and conversational reason its offspring! A similar situation with Urmson. These were the days when Oxford was at its (or her?) most parochial, so don’t expect to find any of this in pint. Urmson ended up writing the obituary for Grice in THE INDEPENDENT (which nobody at Oxford reads), but the interaction dates from a few years earlier. My favourite is Grice’s citation of Urmson in ‘Utterer’s meaning and revisited.’ When we analysed previously the anatomy of the M-INTENTION we got VOLIT_AJUDGE_BACCEPT_Ap where ACCEPT is Grice’s dummy for ‘either volit or judge.’ I. e. the anatomy of a single M-intention behind the simplest conversational move involves a VOLITION on the part of the game-player that his co-player will JUDGE that the conversationalist ACCEPTS that p. (‘Close the door!’ It is already closed!). It is discussion with Urmson – in the example of a bribery – that moves Grice further away from the causalist approach he had ventured in ‘Meaning.’ In ‘Utterer’s meaning and intentions’ Grice thus cites Urmson explicitly as the only source for his necessity to expand the clauses required in the NECESSITY of the conditions for an M-intention being what it is. Grice’s analysis was formulated up to that point in a manner which was loose enough to allow for the motivation behind the utterer behind a matter of a CAUSAL influencing his co-conversationalist in terms of an expected ‘response’ – or ‘effect,’ indeed. The cause-effect link despised by Hume. Urmson made it clear to Grice that there is a REASON involved here. Kemmerling expresses this by means of a curved arrow, which is not the truth-functional ‘if’ – p -> q. In Urmson’s original case of a bribery, we can go back to GARDINER and ONASSIS exchange. GARDINER: See you on Friday then, Onasssis. ONASSIS. I won’t be able to make it. I intend to take the morning train to London then. GARDINER. Are you suggesting you’ll miss our tutorial. ONASSIS produces a bundle of bills. By bribing Gardiner, Onassis is EXPECTING that his showing the colour of money, Gardiner will allow Onassis skip the tutorial. But what kind of behaviour do we have on Gardiner’s part? Is Gardiner’s acceptance of the bribe CAUSED by his perception of the money? No. What we require for Onassis feel free to skip the tutorial is that Onassis recognizes that he has instilled in Gardiner a REASON, and not merely a CAUSE to accept the money. Grice reformulates Urmson’s original example in terms of a torturer applying thumbscrews on his victim.  TORTURER. Where is he? VICTIM. Won’t say. TORTURER applies thumbscrews VICTIM. In the attic! Here, the victim’s conversational move, ‘In the attic’ is prompted by the thumbscrews but not as mere CAUSE. The victim has still to process his pain in such a way that the pain will provide his REASON, and not merely his CAUSE for answering the question! Urmson received good treatment by his former colleagues and tutees in a festschrift which unfortunately made little of his interaction with Grice. The locus classicus for a full account of the history and the concluding prospects of Grice’s theory of conversation will have to take into account what became a famous locus classicus in he literarture of Oxford ordinary-language philosophy. In Urmson’s Parenthetical Verbs, and in his essay on Probability which appeared in a collection edited by one of Grice’s earliest – if not the earliest – tuttee: A. G. N. Flew, Urmson discusses a few points that have Griceian relevance. Urmson refers to a ‘scale.’ This is before Grice is commenting the usual mistake made by that philosopher who goes as per this conversation: MALCOLM. You know that, Moore? MOORE. No, I just believe it. The reciprocal: MALCOLM: You believe that, Moore? MOORE: No, I know it.Grice and Urmson agree that Moore is being illogical here: if he knows it, he believes it. Urmson explains this in terms of the scale (Urmson’s term): ‘know’ above ‘belief.’ The utterance of a parenthetical, such as ‘I believe,’ versus ‘I know’ is guided by the choice guided by expectations in conversation. Urmson mentions expectations involving trust and informativeness. In further publications, notably in his essay on ‘Intensionality’ for the Aristotelian Society Urmson considers: A: The backyard is empty. No animals there B: Wrong: there is a bacterium. Second version: A: The backyard is empty. No animals there. B: Wong. Aunt Matilda is there. Urmson, like Grice, would claim that there is an implicature that ‘animal’ conversationally implicates – ‘not an ant’ and ‘not an aunt.’ “Animal” by default is, in Urmson’s parlance, ‘middle-size animal.’ None of this level of detail is usually encountered in standard presentations of Grice’s philosophy – the reason being that the Oxonian context is taken out of the account! HARE is an interesting figure to analyse in connection with Grice’s pragmatics in that Hare could be elusive. He had lectured with both Austin and Grice on a seminar on Ethica Nicomachea, and Hare would indeed succeed Kneale who had succeeded Austin as White’s professor of moral philosophy. The interactions with Grice started early enough, and Grice would rely on Hare’s 1949 ‘Imperative sentences’ essay in Mind to elucidate with his tutees issues of meaning. Grice knew that Hare was into something.  In contrast with Grice, in retrospect, we may say that Hare became too obsessed with just ONE type of NEUSTIC. He took his professional duties seriously, and once he was appointed the White’s professor of moral philosophy, he possibly thought, as Grice suggests, that he no longer needed to provide an answer qua philosopher as such. It is not surprising that when criticizing the colonial philosopher J. L. Mackie, who had recently died, Grice in the first Paul Carus lectures, brings Mackie to task, by quoting extensively from The Invention of right and wrong. But of all the paraphernalia in Mackie’s essay, it is the verbatim comments by Hare against the universality of values that struck Grice most as ripe for criticism.  Grice would object to Hare that ‘sub-atomic particles’ of logic need not be multiplied beyond necessity. Grice does distinguish between the RADIX and the PROPOSITIONAL CONTEXT (that cat sat on the mat) to which an indicator of MODE is attached. But he rather SIMPLIFIES the modes – to two: the VOLIT and the JUDGE – and both are seen as manifestations of one single supra-operator: the ACCEPT. Throughout his career, Grice kept this generalizing attitude, which he saw was being restricted by Hare by focusing on just one type of sub-atomic analysis, the “!” operator.  When the O. E. D. were looking for early citations of ‘conversational’ implicature and implicature simpliciter, I provided the quote from the early 1967 essay by Hare on Indicatives, where the conversation could go: HARE. I shall post the letter. MRS. HARE. Please. HARE. Or burn it. Hare is applying Grice’s consideration re: “My wife is in the kitchen; therefore, my wife is in the kitchen or in the garden.” Hare is seeing that one alleged asymmetry between an !-forced conversational move and a .-forced conversational move may be explained away by recourse to the conversational logic provided by Grice that knows no boundaries between the alethic and the practical. Indeed, Hare is being reluctant here, and cannot really quote from ‘Logic and conversation’, but from Grice’s earlier ‘The Causal Theory of Perception.’ In the version of ‘Logic and conversation’ that came to light in 1975, Grice is critical about the look of  his ‘conversational immanuel’ as too alethically-oriented. He would remark that he has stated the maxims as if the purpose of conversation were the maximally efficient exchange of information – for ‘indicative cases,’ as he has it in his 1948 ‘Meaning’ – but accommodation can easily be made to allow for the mutual influencing – psi-transfer – behind the simplest motivation by a conversationalist in the ‘instititution of a decision’ via deliberation. In such colloquial terms, he seems to be addressing Hare’s obsession with the practical reason which Kant only thought elucidating well after he had critiqued alethic reason in full! WARNOCK was quite Grice’s senior, but they got on together very well, and one is surprised that Warnock, but not Grice, was able to engage in issues in the philosophy of perception with BOTH Austin AND Grice – whereas the direct interface AUSTIN-GRICE on this topic is missing (Excpet for Grice’s reference to his hate for that ‘sexist bit of vocabulary, the trouser-word’ coined by you know who! The first Carus lecture). Warnock and Grice would spend joint seminars on the philosophy of perception, and the concoction of VISUM is academic in detail. Those seminars were, as they are not NOW, Oxford having become more narcissistic and self-centred – were collaborative efforts in the Oxford manner. The conversationalist B was meant to refute all that conversationalist A had said the previous week. So we can imagine. GRICE. Warnock had introduced the visum last week, and I will extroduce it today. WARNOCK remains silent – (Participation at joint seminars is reserved for the final section of the conversation. GRICE: (after forty minutes against visa). Any questions? WARNOCK: Yes, I think there is more to be said about the visum that you allow, but see you next week, Mr. Grice. Warnock’s own essay, The object of morality, has sections on trust and cooperation that are almost too Griceain to be true, but the two men interacted. And what’s more, Warnock knew what interacting with Grice was. In his “Saturday mornigns”, Warnock expands on various interesting aspects of Grice’s interactions. For one, Warnock testifies that of all the places that Austin preferred for the play group meetings, St. John’s room provided by Grice was Austin’s faovurite, ‘since it made Austin looked like the important business c. e. o. that he was not’. Warnock reports Grice’s ‘How CLEVER language is!’ and hastens to add about the naivete of it all. This, Warnock gets on record, was NOT a public venue – it was not uttererd even on a Saturday morning. And adds that the Saturday mornings, even, were of course not PUBLIC venues, in a way that a joint seminar would be a public venue. Warnock’s implicature being that Grice and others were led to feel free to disagree with Austin (“I don’t give a hoot what the dicionary says!”, Grice would shout at Austin) in ways that was just not etiquette in the ‘flintier’ experiences which were the PUBLIC occasions that had Austin as lecturer – and Warnock knew that Grice had participated in TWO of them with Austin: one on Categories and De Interpreatione, and another one along with a third, R. M. Hare, on Ethica Nicomachea. Warnock never showed, as Grice did, a theoretical interest in a philosophy of language as such. However, due to this status in the Oxford hierarchy, he would testify to current developments in the philosophy of language – vide his treatment on Schiffer on ‘meaning of imperatives’ in “Language and Morality” or this advising B. F. Loar, a Rhodes fellow from the New World – on Loar’s dissertation on ‘Sentence meaning.’ As we proceed, as Grice would have it, in ‘strict order of seniority,’ we reach D. F. Pears. Some tutees recall him as a ‘short man,’ but there was more to Pears than that. His aristocratic background – of “Pears’s Encyclopadeia” fame – and affilitation: the cathedral that makes Oxford a city – helped. His interactions with Grice were many and varied. My favoruite has to be “Metaphysics,” which has Grice as co-authoring (again, as in ‘In defence of a dogma,’ the primary author) with Strawson and Pears for a BBC Third Programme Meeting. The lecture is dry in tone, expect for the bits Grice dedicates to Wisdom, whose conversations were worth reporting:WISDOM: And so I conclude that all metaphysics is nonsense. MOORE: Garbage, you mean? WISDOM. No, Moore, nonsense. Interesting nonsense, in fact! Pears could get more technical elsewhere. When the O. E. D. were looking for early citations of ‘conversational implicature,’ I provided Pears’s reference to Grice in (of all places) The Canadian Journal of Philsoophy. Why Pears would submit an essay to THAT journal escapes me, but it’s all about Grice on ‘if’ +> iff GRICE: There are some biscuits in the cupboard if you are hungry.PEARS. I am. But I’ll only touch them IF AND ONLY IF I am hungry.GRICE. As you wish. Pears would go on. In a most promising contribution to a festschrift for Davidson, Pears repeats Grice’s point that WILING is hardly INTENDING. Intending, as Grice knew – vide his ‘Intention and Uncertainty’ final paragraph – is inextricably linked with BELIEF. Not just any belief, but the belief that the outcome of your intention is feasible in a probability greater than 0.5. Grice knew this. They had, after all, collaborated at Oxford in a subtle topic, “The philosophy of action,” on which subject Grice had also given seminars with J. F. Thomson, but for some reason, Grice got on together better with Pears. THOMSON was a characteristically Oxonian figure, with whom Grice contributed for as long as he could. It was not long before Thomson left Oxford for good. His joint seminars with Grice on ‘The philosophy of action’ are however in the records of this particular chapter in the history of Oxford philosophy – the school of ordinary-language philosophy --. An examination of Thomson’s essay on ‘if’ and the horseshoe show  further Griceian affinities. SNOWDON is an important figure in the later scene of Oxford philosophy – at a time where you were NOT allowed to use the phrase ‘ordinary-language philosophy’ which had come to be a term of abuse. But Snowdon, with Grice directly, and via Strawson, kept Grice’s causal account of perception in the forum. It needs to be remembered that Grice’s approach to causation here is ornamental. As a philosopher, having read Hume, Grice knew that it is best to leave cause and causation OUT OF IT, and when it comes to the trick of PERCEPTION, Grice had no problem in leaving the specific link between the pillar box BEING red and it seeming red to Grice a matter for the occulist! CAUSE had caused him enough problems to Grice, in one earlier conversation he reports in Studies in the Way of Words. TEACHER. Explain the cause of the Death of Charles I. STUDENT: Decapitation. Grice’s point being that (i) the teacher did not mean that, but was looking for the wider context. The second, that Hume is right, and that if ‘… caused …’ is synonymous with ‘… willed …’ then we will have to accept that Decapitation willed the Death of Charles I. When lecturing on ‘knowing’ in the third William James lecture, the cause was again the source of some conflict. TEACHER: When was the Battle of Waterloo. STUDENT. The defeat, you mean? TEACHER. Right. STUDENT. 1815 In the version published in “The Philosophical Review” but not the reprint in Way of Words, Grice cared to provide alternate dates for this “1815 (1814).” Grice’s point being that if we are going to deem the schoolboy KNOWING that the battle of Waterloo was lost by Napoleon in 1815, this is because there is a direct link, alla Dretske and Stampe, between that event, and the schoolboy’s brain. Snowdon knew all this. There are what we may call ‘minor figures’ – a phrase Grice adored as he applied to, in this order: Wollaston, Bosanquet, and Wittgenstein – in the Oxford scene. One group corresponds to those English-born philosophers who got the proper Oxford five-year education (as Grice did for his Lit. Hum.) and then leave for the world at large.  C. A. B. PEACOCKE succeeded Strawson as the Waynflete professor of metaphysical philosophy and that makes him already a Griceian. As it happens, he attended Grice’s seminars in philosophical psychology and became a specialist in Grice’s favourite passe area of research: can there be thought withtout language, or vice versa. My favourite Peacocke alla Grice is his contribution to an influential colloquium organized at Oxford by G. J. Evans and the South-African philosopher McDowell. Peacocke takes up a topic seldom discussed seriously by Grice except on two occasions. The earlier one, in the locus classicus of ‘Meaning’ itself – Grice grants that his audience may wonder what an utterer’s intention may have to do with what a WORD means – ‘Perhaps we are making a reference to ‘people in general’?’ He leaves it at that. By 1967, when Grice resumed the topic, he had the new coinage of ‘idiolect’ to his disposal, but he never passed it. He never provides a definition of the ‘signiificance’ of a ‘conversational move’ as given by a member of a population P. Perhaps the closest he gets is when he says at, at Oxford, i. .e. in the population of Oxonians, ‘We should meet for lunch sometime’ MEANS ‘Get lost’! Peaocke seems unsatisfied with this and provides at the Oxford colloquium necessary and sufficient conditions for an analysans that explicitly mentions not just an utterer but a POPULATION of utterers. Unfortunately, his essay is seldom quoted. Peacocke’s Griceian tribulations with populations was in the air. The Oxford educated – English born (Welsh ancestry) M. K. Davies, attempts much the same in his essay combining an utter-based account of communication with one that also takes into account the population in which that utterer feels like being the member of.  SAINSBURY is an aristocrat, Oxford-educated, and refers to Grice’s identificatory/non-identificatory distinction that Grice introduces in ‘Vacuous Names.’ The essay was murdered when it was cut in two in some reprints, leaving the first part underocovered.  OVER was Oxford educated, an unlike Sainsbury, who moved south, Over moved North and settled in Northumberland. But he recalled Grice and discusses Grice’s exploration on the identificatory/non-identificatory distinction in ‘Vacuous names.’ T. C. POTTS was tutored by Grice and became an expert in the philosophy of language. He settled in Yorskhire, but always kept bright reminiscences of his days with Grice. Michael Clark, Oxford-educated, but with a career afterwards elsewhere, discussed Grice’s M-intentions in the pages of “Analysis” and beyond, regarding the alleged Griceian soluion to Moore’s paradox. It is more difficult to categorise those philosophers who display a deep Griceian influence, who are English-born, but whose Oxford credentials are minimal. My favourite has to be HOLDCROFT who spent most of his penetrating critique of Austin in the Clarendon volume which Holdcroft titled after the seminar by Austin on Words and deeds, and subitlted ‘a critique of Austin’s theory of speech acts.’ His critique amounts to a return to Griceianism, in the emphasis on the intentions by the utterer to make the conversational move he is making. Holcroft had occasion to engage with Grice more specfifically in a number of publications on implicature and conversation, and unlike Leech, who is no philosopher, but a grammarian educated in the redbrick – it is the very philosophical Holdcroft who cared to submit a piece to the non-philosophical journal Journal of Rhetoric and listing the Grice’s ‘conversational insinuation’ – as in damn by faint praise – ‘He has beautiful handwriting’ as a brilliant case of those ‘forms of indirect communication’, as Holdcroft calls them.  Scruton, who hailed from Cambridge, and very English as he is, managed to apply Grice’s theory to a topic that Grice evaded for some time: sexual desire. Scruton points to the fact that if using a dildo, the utterer is not really engaging in conversation, in that one cannot expect the dildo to display M-intentions! His other example concerns Parsiphae who coupled a bull to spawn Asterios, when zoophilia in itself precludes any Gricean sort of conversation. Oxonian philosophers are usually, in spite of appearances to the contrary, the best to criticize his Oxonian colleagues. A few points about Grice’s tenure may be relevant here. His post as tutorial fellow in philosophy at St. John’s and his university lecturership in philosophy for Oxford as a whole came without any requirement for publication or ‘fame.’ Indeed, Grice makes fun of this when in his ‘Prejudices and predilections’ emphasized that such a cavalier attitude invited violent reactions from the tutees, as Grice refers to a philosophy don who predated ‘who managed in his whole lifetime NEVER to publish ONE word’! When Strawson and Wiggins wrote the obituary for The British Academy they do make a reference to the ‘cold shores’ of Oxford. Their implicature being that Grice’s defensiveness was the response to his often competitive milieu. In fact, he kept the marginal annotations to ‘Intentions and dispositions’ which include some criticisms: “I just don’t like the way Grice goes to work,” one commenter remarked. Affiliation to Austin’s play group has been a matter of debate, in that the spirit de corps hid some prejudices and predilections by the ‘Master’ himself. Grice annotated under the ‘yes’ all the good fellows that count: Hare, Hampshire, Nowell-Smith, Pears, Urmson, Warnock. Under the ‘no’ appears Dummett. Dummett was in fact never invited to the play group, but then we don’t think Dummett cared! When Grice succeeded Austin as the convenor to the Play Group, Oxford had changed a bit, and neither tutees nor scholars at large were willing to spend the valued Saturday mornings in ramblings that would not necessarily lead to anything professionally productive. The Sub-Faculty of Philosophy that saw Grice is now gone, and few would-be philosophers care to enoll in the Lit.Hum. programme. The fact that there is a new monster called the Humanities Division doesn’t help. In Grice’s says as a fresh ‘Scholarship’ boy from the Midlands stuck at Corpus, he had no choice, and no hope to even HEAR about philosophy well after he had passed Mods! In his day, the Wykeham professor of logic was supposed to teach you how to argue. Now Oxford offers a Full School of Symbolic Logic on St. Giles that is quite unrelated to whatever rambling the Wykeham professor may feel to engage in!After Grice’s passing, a portrait of H. P. Grice was aptly placed in the Philosopher’s Gallery in the Ryle Room at Merton, as a memorial to a don who encapsulated what is best in the legacy of Oxford ordinarylanguage philosophy.Grice was aware that Nature had endowed him with a convivial nature. “Philosophy has to be fun.” Surely, as these notes have provided enough evidence, Grice believed that it is PHILOSOPHICAL conversation – of the type parodied by Miller in “Beyond the Fringe” – that is, not just at Cambrige, from where Miller hails – but oftentimes at Oxford – at least in Grice’s days as both tutee and tutor – that becomes the most delightful source of humour. Surely, it takes two to be amused. Armstrong, for one, would hardly be amused, at the time of his conversing with Grice, by Grice’s proving Armstrong inflicting himself a self-contraditction that almost led him to his failing for his P. P. E. degree – yet in retrospect he reminisced the occasion with affection. Conversation remained for Grice the BEST source of humour – the humour that is edifying in ways that can only be Griceian (not utilitarian, but perhaps slightly futilitarian), Amstrong notwithstanding! My own involvement with Grice has been long standing. When I was invited to become a research fellow, I found myself getting my transcripts --.But before the transcripts was my father. Grice recalls how fortunate he was in having had a dreadful businessman but a fine musician as a father. I would describe mine as a modernist architect and a week-end painter (a rather dreadful one at that). Grice would never discuss implicature with HIS father, but I discuss it with MINE.Before we proceed to the transcripts, then – early enough in my career – I had a conversation – in the car, as I recall --. I had attended (unlike Grice) my father’s same college (as we call them in the continent – the equivalent of a Clifton, which calling ‘school’ in the Continent minimizes the thing). Legacy it was. Unlike Grice, I was not chained to a scholarship, as the one that got Grice to Corpus Christi.Anyway, there was Father wondering WHY I had decided for ‘the serious study’ of philosophy – as Grice calls it. It was early in my studies, but I had a lesson about ‘Grice Saves But There Is No Free Lunch,’ so I lectured my father on Urmson’s example in ‘Philosophical Analysis’: Wittgenstein went to bed and took off his dirty boots. I dropped the term ‘implicature’ for emphasis. My father pricked his ears, and displayed some interest. What surprise me is that upon hearing “IMPLICATURE, as Grice calls them” – my father objected: “IMPLICANZA!” He found that our language already contained something exactly for implicanza – I mean, for implicature. I especially recall the EMPHASIS Father gave to “implicanza” – it was obvious to him that this was the idea that Grice was about when trying to unbury those ‘innuendos’ – it doesn’t have a double meaning in the continent – of the type that pass for sottinteso or sous-entendue.The finding of the transcripts happened was a good thing, since my alma mater had kept them so tidily, that it is easy to reminisce on each class I had to pass to become the Griceian I became.Because, in the end, I main my favourite Griceian.I can see the pattern of my instruction. It is the continental type, not the tutorial that Grice enjoyed – four years under Hardie.In the continental system, the classes are assigned in block.There were annual courses on Greek.There were annual courses on Latin.There was a class on the ‘Introduction to Philosophy,’ which I thought hilarious, because it was given by the full professor, the associate professor – and the practicum professor. The class was offered to other students under Literae Humaniores – but only those matriculated for PHILOSOPHY were required to suffer the didactics by the associate professor and the practicum professor.The associate professor turned to be good, not so much for what he did – but because in the continental system, eadch class is assigned a syllabus, and the responsible scholar, as I was, could go and check the bibliography by his own. No one else did, since passing the class involved an oral examination which would NOT test you on the assigned readings!In any case, it was through one of those assigned readings, that I came to learn about Austin’s play group – and therefore, Grice!The practicum was boring in its own, but must be the closest I could get to Grice’s own suffering of Eth. Nic. under Hardie. I never thought, at that point, that I could read anything AS BORING as the Eth. Nic. There was this Greek of ages gone, trying to instill on me what it meant to be happy. It sounded so ridiculous!The more ridiculous side to it was that the practicum lecturer pretended to be enthusiastic about it – so we had TWO people instilling in me some foreign idea of happiness: Aristotle and his lecturer! Like Grice, my scholarship was interrupted by the war, and I joined the Army. On my return, -- and in between I had acquired my copy of Austin’s Philosophical Papers! – I endured the tetralogy, which is the division of the history of philosophy along four lines. ANCIENT HISTORY MEDIAEVAL HISTORY MODERN HISTORY CONTEMPORARY HISTORY For Ancient History, and the three rest of them, there was the lecturer himself, and an associate lecturer with whom you meet to ANALYSE a specfici text. Ours chose Plato, not Aristotle – and a specific DIALOGUE at that. So, while the dialogue chosen was NOT the Cratylus, I felt like I would make THAT my dialogue. – so this was a full year I had to my disposal to read Plato in Greek, and enjoy his inconsistencies. The physei and thesei never abandoned me! In my notes, I developed a theory of meaning not unlike the one provided by Grice in his section on ‘Univesals’  in Plato and Aristotle on the multiplicity of being. For it seemed to me, with Grice, that Plato did have a problem with horseness. So I developed – upon my reading of notably analytic philsoophers dealing with Plato – which my lecturer detested – and using an operator – which I took to be dyadic: “S” fo significant or M for meaning, so that, say, ‘horse’ signifies horseness. Like Grice, I would use lower-case and capital to represent a specimen expression, ‘horse,’ and leave capital H to represent HORSE-NESS, the universal. When it came to MEDIAEVAL PHILOOSPHY, the attending class by a specific lecturer aimed at the close analysis of a text was given by someone slightly less than a saint. I had been offered a full scholarship at a religious institution – think Milano Cattolica – and there was no way I would allow the Church to block my free-thinking --. Yet when it came to my approaching mediaeval philosophy, the lecturer of the full course on the history of it, AND the one for the specific textual analyses, were NOTABLY involved in THAT institution, which made me feel that I was a real novice. The author the lecturer of the textual-analysis course chose was AQUINAS – and of course the SVMMA THEOLOGICA. I decided I would go Griceian and study (and impress my lecturer) with how Griceian Aquinas could get. So I glanced in the dark corners of the library those dusty volumes of the PATROLOGIA LATINA, just to get the text of AQUINAS on DE INTERPRETATIONE. I was using, just for the joke of it, ROBINS’s textbook on ‘linguistics’ – although I was familiar with Kretzmann’s history of semantics for Edwards which sounded a bit too Jewish to me. Robins makes some comments on the modistae from a philosophical enough perspective – unlike Kretzman who focuses on all those Jewish authors --. I gathered a few quotes by Aquinas on INTENTIO as applied to the UTTERER, and I thought I had it – and I did. I was what at Oxford you’d call a ‘straight A.’The structuring of the course along the traditional disciplines – ‘philosophy of language,’ ‘philosophy of history,’ ‘ethics,’ ‘metaphysics,’ ‘gnoseology,’ – was peppered by seminars on this or that – usually that. On one on ‘The Sceptic’ given by the same lecturer who was in charge of the ‘gnoseology’ course, I was able to apply Grice directly regarding his claim “What is known is not believed” as a stupid thing to say. The same lecturer then, got my lesson on Grice on TWO counts, since I used Grice to defeat the sceptic (for the specific seminar) and to slow down that emphasis on ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’ posed by Gettier – my lecturer’s obsession – adjusting Gettier so that he could implicate conversationally something more interesting than he usually does.My ‘philosophy of history’ was all about Vico – which Grice never read, but Hampshire (and Collingwood) did – it was nice to learn that history was circular! The lecturer on aesthetics – which I delighted with a piece on Keith Arnatt’s Trouser Words – was also giving this seminar (mandatory attendance for degree) on phenomenology and the social sciences. So I thought that what Grice was saying about RELATION just fit the mould. So I presented this study of what I called the -emic unit of conversation. Grice touches on the point when he expresses his annoyance at people pronouncing ‘suit’ as ‘soot.’ The annoyance is allophonic. So I thought there was something VERY GRICEIAN about the PHONEME, in that it requires INTER-SUBJECTIVITY. Only an inter-subjective (or mutual intelligibility, as self-appointed scientists call it) allow that ‘soot’ and ‘suit’ are seen as ALLOPHONIC variants of the same lexical unit. The -etic was never enough, in spite of Pike! The ‘philosophy of language’ was like having Grice on Peirce and Grice on Quine – and I survived it.For the higher part of my education, ‘philosophy of language’ eventually turned to Mill – and further seminars on ‘rules’ alla Chomsky (in Rules and representations). For each class, course, or seminar, I was able to regale the lectuer with my Griciean gift.This is nicely described in the transcripts. For the seminars towards the maximal degree which I obtained – with an “A,” surely – I was able to delve on the philosophy of logic (the postmodernist Grice, as I call it) and theory of argumentation (my German Grice, i. e. my reading Habermas reading Grice), my Grice-liberalism from Occam and Hobbes – given by the lecturer on modern philosophy who was a member of the Hobbes association. My main interaction at that point was with my director, as the continental system has it, who happened to be the co-founder of a private society for philsosophical analysis – which sounded cool enough. To become a member of it, you need to be INVITED by another member – the fact that I was introduced by the FOUNDER did help. The place was humble, and had a semi-respectable library – but more importantly, the director became the receptor of my elaborations along Griceian lines – from essays on ‘Minimal pragmatics’ to what became the study for the obtainment of the maximal degree, which features ‘Griceian’ in the subtitle. Indeed, it also features ‘conversation’ and ‘reason.’ In those days, I was attending a few conferences where I was finding myself always to present essays that did feature at least those two words: ‘reason’ and ‘conversation’ – not necessarily ‘Griceian.’In my initial phase of my research on H. P. Grice, I got of course in contact with zillions of philosophers (shall we say?) via correspondence, and with some non-philosophers, too! By the time of my maximal-degree study I had narrowed the set of philosophers down to Grice’s Play-Group – with an exception about Hart.You see, it is common ground that Austin would NOT allow anyone HIS senior being there – so what was HART doing? Nothing, possibly. But back to the correspondence and the readings. I seem to have enjoyed most my correspondence with Oxonian or Oxford-educated philosophers – sometimes getting a sharp reply like: “Yes, such an eccentric tutor he was.”I took the job as mainly one of a detective, and I enjoyed it! One reference to H. P. Grice would lead me to another, and so on. Some were dead ends, or dead allies, as I called them. Some philosopher may have know some philosopher who had known Grice, and provide the tidbit. I encountered counter-tidbits for every tidbit. In some cases my correspondents would volunteer with pieces of unpublished work where they had dealt with the work of H. P. Grice – “but never had the occasion to put it to print,” as one told me. As it happened, it was a beautiful defence of H. P. Grice against that outsider that S. A. Kripke always was! Fascinating were the bibliographical detections. Why would PASSMORE, in his history of philosophy, care to have one footnote for GRICE. The more mysterious Grice appeared in the bibliographical references I was getting the more my interest increased. By narrowing down the set of RELEVANT philosophers to Grice’s PLAY GROUP I was doing myself a favour. I was starting to have other interests in mind, and I felt I had to do something about the citations in the things like MIT Pragmatics Habermas. I was also witnessing the government grants that Grice and I always refused! Most of my instructors were under them, and indeed my classmates, which I thought rather odd – since, like Grice, I never thought it was the role of the government to grant you philosophy! (For Grice’s reference, his second Carus lecture, and how it relates to Aristotle’s vice). My engagements remained for the most part private – as per Oxford, Grice never quite felt the NEED to publicise what he was doing. Indeed, it was the Oxford custom to regard any such type of publicizing as RUDE, or vulgar.I felt one early occasion where I did ‘publicise’ was when I offered some ‘prospects’ and retrospeccts as a tribute to Grice analysing such conversational exchanges such as:GRICE (delivering a lecture at Bielefeld). So that is that. GERMAN: And how are you finding Bielefeld. GRICE: I haven’t been mugged yet. The explanation that Grice never provides – it being so obvious – for ‘C hasn’t gone to prison yet’ is too complex to make it philosophically interesting, but Grice knew what he was doing. It so happened that my former instructor in the field of modern philosophy – recall that in the continental tradition, you have an instructor for the history of ancient philosophy, an instructor for the history of mediaeval philosophy, an instructor for the history of modern philosophy, and an instructor for the history of contemporary philosophy – ask Eco who taught at Bologna, the oldest university in Europe! – was also in charge of a Bolettino bibliografico, so I found contributing quite a bit to it – especially since I was attending a seminar towards, among other things, my earning my maximal degree. The requirements were strict. You had to provide the synopsis of something – ‘of somewhat current relevance’ – in I think it was one page. In the published version, it would occupy half a page. So I managed to provide reviews of Grice’s Conception of Value, and my reviews of essay by J. F. Thomson, and R. M. Hare, and C. A. B. Peacocke, not to mention a few that were not really about English-born philosophers, but were thought by me to be philosophically enough and Griceian enough! I had engaged with The Lewis Carroll Society in an attempt to prove Humpty-Dumpty disqualifiable as Griceian, but I don’t think they noticed! Most of the other ‘public’ appearances, as in Grice’s case, were the result of the thing being published as a matter of course via proceeding or because the organizer of the event felt like my mentioning his name in my thing would serve him right (usually for his government grant). Ditto for thesis-advising, as recipient of thesis-advice, so called by which ‘maximal’ degree is what is meant. My interactions with philosophers was and is either via correspondence or ‘in the flesh’ – although the latter tended more towards the unplanned, because the philosopher was either rushing down a steep flight of stairs, or wanting to urinate.I should be able to order my correspondence alphabetically by surname – but why bother? At a more recent date, I WAS INOVOLVED in alphabetical orderings – by SURNAME – and it proved to be a TASK – I was engaged into ‘Grice italo,’ by which I meant ‘forebears’ of Grice in ITALY, especially BOLOGNA (having in mind what I call the trio: Bologna/La-Sorbonne/Vadum-Bovis – and I found mself as echoing George Mikes at points, when he says that ‘de’ is a mark of status in England – So many ITALIAN surnames are pre-ceded by ‘de,’ ‘della’ – I always took the encyclopaedic approach and just deleted all such ornamental stuff and stuck with the surname itself. And then I realised that some of these Italian philosophers had NOBLE titles, and then I thought, if Harry Mountbatten-Windsor made such a fuss about him being a Sussex, I thought I could give the common-or-garden Italian philosopher the same credit, so in case of a nobility, it was the NOBLE surname that took precedence (not MAMIANI, but ROVERE, say). It became all the more complicated when I realised that while Grice’s Oxford English never had it, for the Italians, Latin was just Old Italian, or Italian neo-Latin, so that brought me back a few centuries! And then I realised that ITALO in ITALIA means the peninsula, and that Pythagoras, of all the places where he could have decided to kill himself – he never did – indeed he never died – he chose CROTONE – so the following interlude is just there to prove the PRIORITY of the LATIN ALPHABET when it comes to Griceian stuff. The interested English-born English Oxonian philosopher should be able to fill the gaps, and at least perhaps learn about some Italian philosopher who was deemed Griceian enough to be featured in these pages!I verbali del Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Abstract: The document offers an alphabetical register of Italian philosophers, along with the cross-references to the work of Oxford philosopher Grice – with a focus on conversational implicature as built upon a notion of conversational reason. Each entry follows a regular pattern. The place of birth of the philosopher in bracket. The specification of the place of birth in terms of municipality, province, and region. The entry closes with keywords that cross-reference the work of  Grice. Keywords: conversational reason, conversational implicature, H. P. Grice, Italian philosophy, philosophy in Italy. It may seem odd that I am trying to hard to conciliate Grice with the Italian tradition in philosophy. So perhaps a few points need to be explicated, and rather than be left to implicature. In this introduction will serve as a synopsis of Grice’s thought and most of the cross-referencesthat I have detected in my studies to the output of Italian philosophers. At first sght, the cross-references would beem minimal, or ‘infime,’ as the Italians would put it. A tutor in philosophy at Oxford, that never attained at Oxford the degree of a professor, his activities, professionally, were restricted to the tutoring of a few pupils at his college, St. John’s, and I doubt he had to deal with many Italians! In fact, as Warnock has pointed out, philosophers of Grice’s generations – the Play Group – were notable for AVOIDING PUBLICITY beyond their own circle. And had Grice’s philosoophising not been treated by some who held a less parochial Oxonian view, the few references I have collected would restrict his mentions to Hare, Pears, and a few others, notably Strawson. However, Grice was a systematic philosopher, against all odds, and against this parochial character of the Oxford school of ordinary language of which he was a part. When a memorial to Grice was celebrated at Urbino, only one Italian philosopher, LEONARDI, cared to participate. Italians had to deal first with the language barrier. As Andreas Kemmerling has said regarding his own German language, it seems utterly odd that Grice would focus on an analysis of ‘mean,’ when even in Kemmerling’s vernacular, meinen hardly triggers the same implicatures. When it comes to implicature itself, the rhetorical tradition so rich in the Italian renaissance may come for help. After all Grice is making a distinction between EXPLICITLY conveying that p, and IMPLICITLY doing so, via insinuating that p, implying that p, suggesting that p, even meaning that p. Grice’s style of philosophizing tended to disgressions and the core issues he kept secretly stored. In this introductory notes I wil heighten some basic aspects. The introduction is itself divided into a sub-introduction, a middle section, and a conclusion.The document is structured in three parts. In the first part, a scheme is proposed for a general comparison: “Grice e X”, where “X” stands for the surname of an Italian philosopher. Comparative studies – or cross-sectional, as Grice calls them – are rare, and not easy to elaborate. Grice was a specialist in cross-sectional studies, as they concerned his views in comparison with other philosophers, but with himself. In “Intention and uncertainty,” for example, he spends half of the lecture recounting his earlier account in “Intention and disposition.” Still, he enjoyed the longitudinal unity and latitudinal unity one may enjoy in the discipline from time to time. The second part is an expansion of Grice’s own philosophy, with a view to that comparison with Italian philosophy.The third and final part is an alphabetical register of Italian philosophers, and their interaction with Grice. Each entry follows the same pattern. The specific cross-reference, or cross-section. This is followed by the Italian philosopher’s specific contribution to the area. The conclusion includes those keywords that provide both the longitudinal unity – with the history of philosophy as such – and the latitudinal unity – with special focus between the ‘prammatica’ as ‘rettorica conversazionale,’ to use the old spelling of ‘retorica’ – and other sub-disciplines of philosophy, as practiced by Grice and the Italian philosophers. Why alphabetical? This requires a philosophical justification. There are indeedvarious philosophical reasons to give for it. First: to give the INDIVIDUAL philosopher some autonomy. Suppose, if Abbà just happened to be peppered here and there – as I have --, or list in the bibliographical references – as I have: the search being ‘Grice e [INSERT NAME OF PHILOSOPHER]’ which yields the specific search collocation ‘Grice e Abbà’ – or in the name index, as I have done, followed by his first and middle names: Abbà, Giacomo Andrea – we would still be lacking a reference site where to discuss this particular individual philosopher INDIVIDUALLY, and not as part of the greater Griceian context. The second reason is indeed the bibliographical references. Whatever you think of the archaicity of the alphabetum, the alphabet is still used in bibliographical references, -- and this alphabetical list below then offers a correspondence to the bibliographical references – if not a specific study by the philosopher such as Abbà himself, in the strict collocation ‘Grice e Abbà’. Finally, the alphabetical order is of of course used in the NAME INDEX that follows the Bibliographical references, with the surname of the philosopher, ‘Abbà’ – followed by his first and middle names: ‘Giacomo Andrea.’ This was a problem even for Grice, who, as H. P. Grice, is indeed preceded in the alphabetic name index by Grice, G. R. – a contemporary of his who studied at Oxford under Austin vintage. In a more classical mould, the first and second names become essential when discussing classical philsoohers, or those who I classify as around Bologna: there’s a PICO, but the PICOs under the PICO. Anotherr feature will the THE KEYWORD. As an example, I shall take DEUTERO-ESPERANTO. I have used this as the keyword – after Grice’s jocular reference while lecturing for the masses at Oxford. “Don’t talk to me about mutual knowledge or convention” – this was a conference organized by grammarians of the Enlgish language sponsored by N. V. Smith, whom Grice had never met, entitled “MUTUAL KNOWLEDGE”! – “I can invent a language, call it Deutero-Esperanto” – and you’ll have the master. The fun is of course that Grice never had to ‘invent’ such a language – a form of life, for his beloved Vitters – but the Italians, call then literalists – relentlessly literalists, as Grice calls Austin, and as the sign of Austin’s classical education and social class (lower classes are hardly relentlessly literalists – nor is their humour relentlessly literal – went on and do: invent – not ‘Deutero-Esperanto’ but say, “Latino sine Flexione,” or what have you. You’d be surprised by the ZILLIONS of Italian philosophers of language (notably Campanella) who took Grice’s adamant injunction seriously, and they DID go and invent. Grice never gave one. In the alphabetical list that follows, of Italian philosophers, I have used the keyword Deutero-Esperanto. Just a quick search retrieves the following alphabetical list of the Italian philosophers more or less seriously concerned with it – and for each of which I have supplied a bibliographical reference – the earliest – to prove it! Just a few: Albani, Altandari, Allioni, Argentieri, Aurelj, Barcellona, Bellavitis, Boella, Calabresi, Camillo, Campanella, Cazzulani, and you go on if you are interested! A FURTHER NOTE ON THE CHOICE OF THE “ITALO”. There are various philosophical reasons why the “ITALO” is the one with which that the Griceian should spend more time with. [A note on the spelling. Throughout this study, and just to offend the dependent researcher, we have adopted Fodor’s spelling ‘Griceian’ – It makes the surname more obvious than ‘Gricean.’ Fodor uses the spelling in his influential Language of Thought, but it never really took a hold among the masses – which, what do they know about Grice anyways [sic]? (And feel free to add this note in brackets after each spelling of “Griceian” – or “Gricean” fo that matter!)]. The choice, “ITALY” is hardly accidental – the choice is not indeed ARBITRARY – and less so, national! These two main reasons can be expanded as follows. First, the primacy of BOLOGNA in what I call the Bologna/La-Sorbonne/Vadum-Bovis trio. Had Grice never attained the post of tutorial fellow in philosophy at St. John’s, and university lecturer for the University of Oxford, or the Vadum Bovis, as even Oxonians called it -- at large, we wouldn’t be caring about him o this! A second reason for the hierarchy of the Bologna/Sorbonna/Vadum-Bovis trio is LINGUISTIC. What Grice called ‘The Lingo.’ The correlations are easy to make: BOLOGNA: FROM LATIN TO ITALIAN; SORBONNE: From Latin to French – or ‘la langue gallique,’ as the French have it – (the Franks considered Barbarians in comparison); OXFORD: from LATIN to ENGLISC. It is a good thing that ENGLISC is still Indo-European, or Indo-Germanic, as Max Müller, who lectured at Oxford often, would prefer! The passage fron LATIN to ITALIAN is pure and simple – no barbarisms, or hybrids involved – except the odd lexeme like ‘bisogno’ to translate Grice’s seminar on ‘needs.’’ The passage Latin to LINGVIA GALLICA is natural enough, even though, expect the further barbarism. But the passage LATIN to ENGLISC is made all the easier to AELFRIC (who thought he was writing a masterpiece of Latin grammatology, in Derrida’s acception, with his little thing for his school boys at Winchester, when the thing is only read today because he happened to use ENGLISC as the meta-language! German linguists, who detest the Indian, call it Indo-Germanic, or Indo-European – the roots are the same! As an exercise, the Griceian among us may apply this to H. P. Grice’s keyword in his 1948 Oxford Philosophical Society talk on ‘meaning’ – Latin mentire [neo-Latin, mentare] cognate with ‘mean.’ In the transition from Latin to the vernaculars at Europe’s three most prestigious medieval universities, we see a what Grice calls a ladder of diverseness. This journey moves from a direct evolution to a hybrid fusion, and, finally, to a radical linguistic departure. We start with Bologna in 1088, for what Grice calls the natural evolution. At the university of Bologna, the transition to the vernacular is a shift to the ‘closest relative.’ The Vernacular is Italian, specifically the Tuscan dialect. The diverseness level is low. Italian is the direct, natural descendant of Vulgar Latin, the common speech of the Roman people. In the adoption context, because Italian retains much of Latin’s musicality and core vocabulary, the change is more of a ‘re-naming’ of the evolved common tongue than a replacement by something foreign. By the 15th and 16th centuries, Italian officially did replace Latin in administrative and cultural spheres across the peninsula. With La Sorbonne in 1150, the have the hybrid fusion. At the University of Paris, La Sorbonn), the adoption of Lingua Gallica, old French, introduces a layer of structural complexity and external influence. The Vernacular is Old French, the Diverseness Level is Medium. While French is a Romance language, it is a hybrid. It is shaped by a Latin base heavily influenced by Gallic (Celtic) and Frankish (Germanic) elements. In the adoption context, this version of the vernacular is less structured, despite of what Peter Trudgill says in “Language Myths” – “French is the most logical language” -- than Classical Latin, featuring unique grammatical shifts like verb-framed constructions that appear and disappear abruptly. The move to the vernacular at the Sorbonne represents a bridge between the sacred Roman past and a secular, increasingly diverse European identity. Finally, at H. P. Grice’s Oxford in 1167, we have the ‘barbarian departure At Oxford, the shift to ‘Englisc’, Old/Middle English, represents the most radical break from the Latin tradition. The Vernacular is English. The diverseness level is high. Unlike the previous two, English is a Germanic language, not a Romance one. From the perspective of a Latinist – as H. P. Grice’s instructors for his Lit. Hum – and The Sub-Faculty of Philosophy as within the Faculty of Literae Humaniores, it is the barbarian tongue of the North. In the adoption context, for centuries, Latin remains the language of the elite at Oxford because English is hyst deemed inadequate for high philosophy or, indeed, blue-collared science. The eventual adoption of is a triumph of the common people’s speech over the lofty Latinists' style, and Grice knew it! It is a language that has to borrow over 60% of its vocabulary from Latin and French just to function in an academic setting. Grice would often like to explore how the printing press specifically accelerates the decline of Latin in these three regions, but he was too busy criketting! (As an application, the Griciean amongst us may apply that triadic diverseness to something like H. P. Grice’s abrupt talk of ‘meaning’ in his 1948 talk for the only society then that catered for both scholars and their instructors: ‘meaning’! Baloney -- BOLOGNESI, Sorbonnennes, e Vadum Bovis. Rewrite this as opening paragraph for this alphabetical order of Italian philosophers – not capricious, but my following what I call the overall motto of this study: “Bolognesi, Sorbonnes e Vadum Bovis” (play on Bolognesi, collective plural for attendant of Sorbonne, and those attending the ford of the oxen, as Grice did – at Vadum Bovis. One paragraph per philosopher, with retrospective cross-reference to either Part I: THE MODEL OF CONVERSATION, using keywords, or Part II, THE THEORY THEORY (sic) OF CONVERSATION, again with keywords. It will be evident that Italian philosophers, closer to the Bolognese tradition, have given priority to issues emerging from political philosophy (what Grice has as DE FACTO right), and secondarily to moral philosophy (TITULAR right) and appoached ‘conversazione’ as a civil endeavour – while providing minimal attention to ‘semiotic’ concerns that tend to become too abstract, otiose, or unnecessary for the Bolognese-oriented philosophical Italian mind. My intention being that each philosopher is given individuality, and not just as a list under a current, and that little attention has been given to dates – following Sellars and Yeatman’s idea that there are only TWO dates to remember in the History of England, 55 B. C. and 1066 – but also to ensure that Grice’s point about the longitudinal unity and the latitudinal unity of philosophy both shine with a double light. This alphabetical register of Italian philosophers is shaped by the guiding motto: “Bolognesi, Sorbonnes e Vadum Bovis”—a deliberate nod to the collective traditions of Bologna, the Sorbonne, and Oxford (Vadum Bovis, “the ford of the oxen,” as Grice affectionately dubbed it). The structure is not capricious, but reflects a philosophical principle: each thinker is accorded individual recognition, rather than being submerged within overarching currents or schools. The rationale for alphabetical order is twofold: it preserves the autonomy of each philosopher—allowing their contributions to stand out—and aligns with the practical conventions of bibliographical reference and scholarly indexing. For each entry, the philosopher receives a dedicated paragraph, enriched by retrospective cross-references to either Part I (THE MODEL OF CONVERSATION) or Part II (THE THEORY THEORY OF CONVERSATION), marked by relevant keywords. This method underscores the distinctive priorities of Italian philosophers, especially those rooted in the Bolognese tradition, who have consistently foregrounded questions arising from political philosophy (de facto rights), and, secondarily, moral philosophy (titular rights), treating ‘conversazione’ as a fundamentally civic endeavor. Abstract semiotic concerns, often viewed as unnecessarily esoteric or otiose by the Bolognese-oriented mind, are approached with caution and minimal emphasis. In the spirit of Sellars and Yeatman, little attention is paid to dates, thereby reinforcing Grice’s insight that philosophy’s unity—both longitudinal across time and latitudinal across traditions—shines with a double light. The aim is to illuminate each philosopher’s individuality and contribution to the conversation, rather than merely cataloging them as part of a historical sequence. This opening paragraph introduces an alphabetical list of Italian philosophers, shaped by the guiding motto: “Bolognesi, Sorbonnes e Vadum Bovis.” Each philosopher receives an individual paragraph, referencing either Part I (The Model of Conversation) or Part II (The 'Theory Theory' of Conversation) via keywords. Italian philosophers, influenced by the Bolognese tradition, primarily address political philosophy (de facto rights), secondarily moral philosophy (titular rights), and treat conversation as a civic pursuit, often overlooking abstract semiotic issues. Dates are largely ignored, echoing Sellars and Yeatman's approach, to highlight Grice’s view of philosophical unity across time and tradition. The Unity of conversation The Unity of Conversation In an imagined room somewhere between Vadum Boum and the other place, five composite figures take tea and take turns. Their aim is not to settle philosophy, but to test Grice’s claim that conversation itself displays a longitudinal unity across the centuries and a latitudinal unity across cultures and historical situations—and to let that claim serve, without repetition, as a threshold to the alphabetical procession of Italian philosophers that follows. Dialogue (65 moves). Grice: Before your alphabetical Italians begin marching past, I want a prologue: not an “abstract” but a conversation. My theme is the unity of conversation—longitudinally through philosophy, latitudinally through its histories. Kantotle: Longitudinal and latitudinal: you speak as if philosophy had axes like geography. What marks the long line, and what marks the wide spread? Grice: Longitudinal unity is the traceable continuity of problems and methods across time—Plato, Aristotle, and then again Descartes (French, but writing in Latin and French), Leibniz (German, writing in Latin, French, and German), Hume (a Scot, in Scots), Kant (German, in Latin and German). Latitudinal unity is the way the same “enterprise” lives in different idioms, institutions, and cultures—translation not as loss but as the condition of philosophical life. Ariskant: You are quoting yourself—Prejudices and predilections. You even say the transference between idioms should be hailed with thanksgiving. Grice: Quite. The fantasy there is that problems have been solved many times; what makes us think otherwise is the difficulty of reading across idioms—across centuries and across cultures. Heglato: Yet you add a barb: introjection into minor figures’ shoes is neither possible nor worth the trouble. You name Wollaston and Bosanquet—and then, to provoke, “Vitters.” Plathegel: “Vitters” is a flag planted in the marsh: a dare to your own audience. Are you mocking the man, or mocking the worship of him? Grice: In that passage, the point is methodological: with some figures the attempt to “rethink their offerings as if it were ourselves who were the offerers” is feasible and rewarding; with others—so I wrote—it is not. But yes, I chose “Vitters” to irritate. Kantotle: Irritate whom? The Vadum Boum playmates who spend Saturday mornings on him? Grice: Precisely. One cannot ignore how Pears and McGuinness—Saturday morning companions, as it were—went on to render his German prose palatable to the vernacular of Vadum Boum. Translation makes him more “present,” and thus more tempting as an idol. Ariskant: So the provocation is doubled: you call him “minor” in the very breath that notes how translation has made him unavoidable. Grice: And doubled again by the thought that the very success of the translators encourages an illusion: that philosophy is best approached by polishing prose rather than by tracking problems and methods. Heglato: If we are speaking of omissions: I am surprised that Hegel—who influenced the Italians so greatly—does not make your rewarding list. Never mind “the Hun himself,” or themselves, if we are counting the Germanic chorus. Grice: I have my prejudices. But the list in that moment was illustrative, not canonical. I was sketching an easy longitudinal track that even an Oxonian can recognise: Plato-Aristotle, then again Descartes-Leibniz-Hume-Kant. Plathegel: Yet Cambridge would object: if Vadum Boum pairs Aristotle with Kant, the other place pairs Plato with Hegel. Your omissions look like local politics disguised as method. Grice: Politics of curricula, yes. Vadum Boum: Aristotle and Kant sit companionably on reading lists; Cambridge: Plato and Hegel converse under different roofs. That is already latitudinal unity—institutions distributing attention. Kantotle: And what of me? You once called “Kantotle” an unjustly neglected philosopher—half-joke, half-diagnosis of Oxford taste. Grice: “Kantotle” is an emblem of that taste: Aristotle’s sobriety with Kant’s constraint, stitched into one tutorial temperament. It is a composite, but composites reveal what a place values. Ariskant: You also played with “Ariskant” in unpublications—perhaps the darker twin: Aristotle infected by the critical turn, or Kant disciplined by the Lyceum. Grice: And your very existence proves my point: longitudinal unity is not just a genealogy of names; it is a continuity of argumentative moves, re-combinable across time. Heglato: Then “Heglato” is my counter-emblem: Plato’s dialectic with Hegel’s historical consciousness. Cambridge smiles; Oxford frowns; Italians read both and ask why the English quarrel is so parochial. Plathegel: And “Plathegel” is the hybrid that tries to hold the room: Plato’s form and Hegel’s process as one conversational rhythm—question, negation, recollection, return. Kantotle: But what exactly is “latitudinal unity” for you? You talk like a geographer, but you mean pragmatics. Grice: I mean that conversation—its maxims, its implicatures, its rational pressures—travels sideways into different histories. The same cooperative expectations can inhabit Latin scholasticism, German system, French clarity, Italian ethical urgency, or Oxford irony. Ariskant: Then your “transference between idioms” is not merely linguistic but practical: how one learns to speak, argue, and insinuate in a given place. Grice: Exactly. Latitudinal unity is the history of the conversational setting: universities, salons, seminar rooms, translations, and the social forms that make certain moves available. Heglato: Yet you insist the enterprise is still philosophy. What keeps pragmatics from turning into mere sociology? Grice: The normativity of reason. Even when we trace habits of speech, we are tracking what counts as a good move—what is licensed, what is answerable, what is criticised. Conversation is a rational practice, not merely a social noise Plathegel: But reason changes its costume. Hegel would say: reason is historical, not merely formal Grice: And I say: reason is stable enough to make criticism intelligible, yet flexible enough to survive translation. Otherwise the very idea of misunderstanding—or correction—would evaporate  Kantotle: In your passage, you advise treating the great dead as great and living. That is a conversational recommendation: speak to them, not about them Grice: Precisely. I want to “converse” with Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant—as if they were across the table. That is longitudinal unity enacted as dialogue. Ariskant: But your audience hears a threat: if the dead are living, the living are answerable to the dead, and the local fashion—say, the cult of “Vitters”—loses its monopoly. Grice: And that is why I tease. A provocation can be a methodological reminder: do not confuse fashionable exegesis with philosophical work. Heglato: Still, one must not treat “minor figures” as mere rubble. Sometimes a so-called minor idiom is the hinge of a tradition—especially across cultures. Grice: Granted. My remark was not a metaphysical decree. It was a caution: introjection is costly; spend it where it yields method, not merely biography. Plathegel: Yet translation itself can make a figure “major” in one latitude and “minor” in another. An Italian may find Hegel indispensable; an Oxonian may find him a nuisance Grice: That is the latitudinal lesson. The same name carries different conversational affordances in different places. What matters is: can we still speak across them without collapsing into either reverence or parody? Kantotle: Now to your second announced axis: you say Italian philosophers will touch more on ethics—on which you explicitly never philosophised except indirectly. Grice: Yes. My prejudices were linguistic and methodological; my predilections, when they edged toward value, did so obliquely—through the rational basis of ethics in my Kant lectures, or through the axiological rationality of moral value in lectures on the conception of value. Ariskant: So your Italian survey expands your predilections while keeping your prejudices: you keep your conversational method, but widen the topics toward ethics. Grice: Exactly. I do not suddenly become a moralist; I become a better conversationalist about morality, by letting others bring the topics where I only provided the tools. Heglato: And this is where Hegel’s absence in your earlier list becomes ironic: Italians read Hegel ethically as much as metaphysically—freedom, recognition, historical agency. Grice: Very well: let Hegel return via Italy, if not via my Oxford lists. That is precisely the point of the latitudinal: history reintroduces what local curricula exclude. Plathegel: Then the forthcoming alphabetical list is not mere cataloguing; it is your evidence. The Italians, across centuries, will supply longitudinal unity; their shared preoccupations—especially ethical ones—will supply latitudinal unity of history. Grice: Well put. Each Italian below will get his time in the sun: a four-move exchange with me, as proof that I can dialogue with each, and thus that the old fantasy of unity is not merely pious. Kantotle: But how will you prevent the exchanges from becoming repetitive—each philosopher merely a new costume for the same Gricean maxim? Grice: By letting each bring a “catchy right topic,” as you put it—one where my conversational apparatus must stretch. The point is not to make them Griceans; it is to show Grice can be answerable to them. Ariskant: So the test is conversational: can your maxims survive contact with alien ethical vocabularies—virtù, coscienza, diritto, valore—without reducing them to English idiom? Grice: Precisely. If I merely translate them into my own jargon, I fail the latitudinal. If I cannot find a rational path between idioms, I fail the longitudinal too. Heglato: Then you need an ending that is indeterminate—because the conversation must not close the list; it must open it. Grice: Yes. Conversation is the proper prologue because it is never properly finished. The list that follows is not an appendix; it is the continuation of the talk by other voices. Plathegel: Let us, then, return to “Vitters.” Was the provocation also aimed at the Saturday-morning idea that philosophy is best done by correcting the English of a German? Grice: That, and the deeper temptation: to treat translation as domestication rather than as risk. Pears and McGuinness made the German palatable; but philosophy sometimes needs indigestion to stay alive. Kantotle: Yet without translation you would not have your latitudinal axis at all. You need the palatable and the unpalatable both. Grice: Exactly. The “thanksgiving” line was sincere: transference between idioms is what keeps philosophy alive. But thanksgiving is not worship; it is gratitude with criticism intact. Ariskant: Then the Italian chapters will be a practice in controlled introjection: stepping into sandals across centuries, but also into histories across regions. Grice: And doing so as conversation, not as kow-towing in a hall of fame. We address them as if they could answer, and as if we could be corrected. Heglato: If that is your method, you will have to let some Italians correct you on ethics—where you admit you spoke only indirectly. Grice: I am prepared to be corrected—provided the correction is a good conversational move: relevant, informative enough, and not a mere display of historical costume. Plathegel: And what of the Oxford–Cambridge pairing? Will the Italians dissolve it, or sharpen it? Grice: Both. They may show that “Aristotle and Kant at Vadum Boum” and “Plato and Hegel at Cambridge” are parochial abbreviations for larger European continuities—and that Italy, by insisting on ethics, interrupts both abbreviations. Kantotle: Then the unity you seek is not uniformity but compatibility: a set of practices that can be translated without being flattened. Ariskant: And the proof will be in the coming four-move exchanges: each will be short, but each will have to change the direction of your thought a little. Grice: That is the hope. Now let the alphabetical Italians enter—each with a moment of dialogue—so that longitudinal unity can be read in the scan of centuries, and latitudinal unity in the shifting emphases of history, especially where ethics forces my pragmatics to earn its keep. Nota di passaggio (fine Parte I). La Parte II inaugura i verbali del Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice. Ogni verbale prende avvio da un nome proprio (talora accompagnato da un luogo), da una citazione‑innesco e da una breve costellazione di parole‑chiave; segue poi la conversazione (Grice incluso), con eventuali rimandi interni e chiusura bibliografica. L’ordine è di comodo (alfabetico) e non pretende alcuna gerarchia filosofica.

 

 

PART II: I VERBAL DEL GRUPPO DI GIOCO DI H. P. GRICE

 

Note for the reader. The rubric “Grice and Italian philosophy” is used here in a deliberately time-indexed and availability-sensitive way, keyed to Grice’s Oxford years (1930–1967). The primary criterion is contemporaneity in a strict sense: Italian philosophers count as interlocutors when they were alive at some point within that window and when their work was in principle accessible to an Oxford philosopher from 1930 onwards; thus Benedetto Croce qualifies paradigmatically, since his earliest publications predate 1930 and he was himself a living figure when Grice arrived at Oxford, so that a genuine (even if only counterfactual) possibility of intellectual contact exists. By contrast, canonical Italian figures outside the window (for example, medieval authorities) may remain indispensable as background, but they do not count as “intersections” under this rubric merely in virtue of being part of an Italian tradition. A secondary, explicitly marked inclusion rule is also allowed for exceptional cases of reception: an earlier Italian author may be admitted when a specific edition, translation, anthology, controversy, or scholarly “rediscovery” was demonstrably current in the anglophone/Oxford scene during 1930–1967, thereby making that author functionally contemporary for Grice’s purposes; such cases are treated as reception-history intersections rather than as direct contemporaneous interlocutions.

 

What you can say confidently (and what you should flag as “I may be misremembering”) splits neatly into three layers: (i) Oxford term mechanics, (ii) Grice’s likely first term/year, (iii) Hardie-from-the-beginning? 1) If Grice “came up” in 1930: what term/month name would it be? If he began in the normal way, he would have “come up” for Michaelmas Term (the autumn term). Michaelmas is the first term of the academic year and is named from Michaelmas (29 Sept). [en.wikipedia.org] So, in Grice-voice you can safely have him say something like:  “Michaelmas, naturally—the term whose name tells you you’re not at a university but at a calendar.”  But: I can’t, from the sources I can currently cite, give you the exact Michaelmas Full Term dates for 1930 (those dates were/are published in the Gazette, but I haven’t pulled the specific 1930 notice yet). The modern rule about Full Term being eight weeks and beginning on a Sunday is stated in the general Oxford term framework. [en.wikipedia.org], [ox.ac.uk] 2) Was it 1929, 1930, or 1931? Your instinct that 1929 is unlikely is reasonable. The most solid biographical capsule we have in hand (British Academy memoir) fixes:  Classical Honour Moderations: 1933 Literae Humaniores finals: 1935 [thebritish...demy.ac.uk]  That pattern strongly suggests matriculation around 1931 (because Mods typically come early, then Greats finals later). But since you’re deliberately writing as Grice and allowing the “I can’t quite recall” stance, the safest narrative move is:  Treat 1930/31 as the fuzzy boundary and have Grice explicitly acknowledge the uncertainty: “Some would put it in ’30; my own memory puts it in Michaelmas a year later, though memory is not a register.”  (We can tighten this if you want me to dig the actual Gazette “New Scholars” list you saw—your recollection sounds like exactly the sort of thing searchable in the Gazette archive page, but we haven’t yet located the specific issue.) [ox.ac.uk] 3) Was Hardie assigned “from the beginning”? Here you can be much firmer in principle, even if you don’t specify an exact week:  W. F. R. Hardie was the Corpus tutor in philosophy from 1926 onward, and is explicitly recorded as tutor to Paul Grice. [en.wikipedia.org]  So it is perfectly idiomatic (and fact-safe) for “Grice” to say:  “Hardie was inescapable at Corpus—one didn’t so much choose him as encounter him as one encounters a compulsory text.”  What you can’t safely assert without further evidence is:  “Hardie was assigned to me in my very first week/first tutorial/first day.” It’s likely in spirit, but if you want to keep it scrupulous, make it: “early,” “from the outset,” or “before I’d learned where Hall was.”  A Grice-style recollection paragraph (chat-only, ready for you to paste)  Grice (recollecting, later): People now talk as if one “arrived” at Oxford on a date, as if one were a parcel. I have a vaguer memory: Michaelmas, certainly—the term that announces, by its very name, that one’s education will be conducted by the Church calendar whether one likes it or not. As to the year, I find myself tempted by round numbers—1930 has a pleasing symmetry—but the official chronology is a sterner tutor than memory, and the safer claim is simply that I came up at the start of the decade and was soon captured by the Corpus machine: Mods first, Greats later. And as for Hardie—people ask whether I was “assigned” to him, as if tutors were allocated like beds. The truth is cruder: at Corpus Hardie was simply there, the resident intelligence for philosophy, and one met him early enough to feel, almost at once, that the real discipline at Oxford is not the examination but the tutorial—where a question can be answered, if at all, only after you have been made to say what you mean by the smallest word in the sentence. Yes—that Gazette notice (10 April 1930) is strong evidence that Grice had secured the Classics scholarship by then, and it makes Michaelmas Term 1930 the most natural “coming up” point. Two careful points, though:   Elected ≠ Matriculated (always). Scholarship elections in April commonly refer to awards for the next academic year (i.e., for the student to come up in autumn). So it’s very reasonable to infer: elected April 1930 → came up Michaelmas 1930. But the Gazette line by itself doesn’t logically force the exact matriculation date.   Hardie “from the beginning”: plausible, but phrase it safely. If Grice came up to Corpus on a Classics scholarship, he would normally have been under the college’s tutorial system immediately, and Hardie was indeed a central Corpus philosophy tutor figure in that period. So “met Hardie early” is safe; “met Hardie in his first week” is stronger than the evidence you’ve cited.   A Grice-voice recollection you can insert (chat only)  Grice (recollecting): People sometimes get the chronology wrong because Oxford encourages one to remember terms as moods rather than dates. But the record is plain enough: the Gazette in April 1930 lists my election to a Classics scholarship from Clifton. That fixes the practical point: by the following Michaelmas I was meant to “come up”—as if one were a fish ascending a river—into Corpus and the machinery of Lit. Hum. The first term is always Michaelmas; it begins the year and also begins the discipline. Whether I first met Hardie on day one I cannot swear—Oxford does not introduce tutors with trumpet-calls—but I met him early enough to feel he had been there all along: an unavoidable presence, like Aristotle in Greats. If one had a scholarship, one did not float free; one was promptly attached—to a college, to a reading list, and to a man whose questions made it impossible to pretend that construing Lucretius was the whole of liberty.  If you’d like, paste the exact Gazette wording (the whole line, including any college name if printed), and I can tighten the “Corpus vs Oxford-wide” inference and make the vignette even more definite without overclaiming. 1930 Three for 1930 (Italy; “Oxford-radar plausible”), with the same quick why it fits gloss—and, nicely, all three of these are the sort of things that an Oxford don could plausibly have noticed (one is literally tied to Oxford itself):   Benedetto Croce (1930). Antistoricismo (lecture at the Seventh International Congress of Philosophy, Oxford; printed in La Critica the same year; later re-collected).  Why it fits: this is literally Oxford-facing (an Oxford Congress/lecture), and Croce is the Italian philosopher with the highest chance of being “in the air” in Oxford in the early 1930s. [ibs.it], [abebooks.com]   Ugo Spirito (1930). L’idealismo italiano e i suoi critici. Firenze: Le Monnier.  Why it fits: clean “state of the Italian scene” book—idealism in Italy, presented as a debate with critics; also explicitly reviewed in the (UK) journal Philosophy, which makes it very plausibly “radar.” [cambridge.org], [biblio.toscana.it] [cambridge.org]   Piero Martinetti (1930). Antologia kantiana. Torino: Paravia.  Why it fits: Oxford would always have a Kant corridor; an Italian Kant anthology/commentary from Paravia is the kind of “teaching spine” object that can travel quietly into libraries and reading lists. 1931 Three for 1931 (Italy; “Oxford-radar plausible”), with the brief “why it fits” note, and choosing items with clean bibliographic anchoring:   Benedetto Croce, Etica e politica (Bari: Laterza, 1931).  Why it fits: Croce is one of the few Italian philosophers with real cross-border name-recognition in the period; and “ethics + politics” is a topic-title that could plausibly tempt an Oxford moral philosopher even when he ignores Italian metaphysics. [Opere di B...ce Laterza]   Giovanni Gentile, La filosofia dell’arte (Milano: Treves, 1931).  Why it fits: a major-system figure publishing a substantial “aesthetics as philosophy” volume; and it’s demonstrably visible beyond Italy (reviewed in the Journal of Philosophy in 1931). [abebooks.com], [jstor.org]   Nicola Abbagnano, Il problema di Dio in alcune recenti discussioni (estratto da “Logos”, anno XIV, 1931; Napoli/Città di Castello: Perrella).  Why it fits: a compact, exportable “problem book” in offprint form—exactly the kind of item that can circulate in libraries and personal files even when full monographs don’t; and thematically it plugs into the Oxford “religion/metaphysics” corridor without needing existentialist vocabulary yet. [abebooks.com] 1932 Three for 1932 (Italy; “Oxford-radar plausible”), keeping your established mix (big-name monograph + a channel-marker + a “system text” that might actually travel):   Benedetto Croce (1932). Storia d’Europa nel secolo decimonono.  Why it fits: Croce is one of the few Italian philosophers who could plausibly have been “on the shelves” and in the peripheral awareness of Oxford classicists/philosophers; and the “religion of liberty” theme is legible even when the metaphysics isn’t. [amazon.it], [en.wikipedia.org]   LA CRITICA (dir. Croce) (1932). La Critica. Rivista di letteratura, storia e filosofia, Vol. XXX (1932). Napoli: Laterza.  Why it fits: your best “channel marker” for the Italian philosophical ecosystem in this decade; even if Oxford ignored the contents, it could easily know of the title. [abebooks.it], [abebooks.com]   Giovanni Gentile (1932). La riforma della scuola in Italia (2ª ed.). Milano: Treves.  Why it fits: pedagogy/education-policy is one of the likeliest “cross-border” genres (libraries buy it; governments watch it), and Gentile is a high-salience Italian name in the period—so it’s a very plausible “radar” hit even for people who don’t read Italian philosophy for pleasure. [archive.org] 1933 Three for 1933 (Italy; “Oxford-radar plausible”), keeping your pattern (big channel + a readable monograph + a “scene/philosophy” marker):   Benedetto Croce (ed.) (1933). La Critica. Rivista di letteratura, storia e filosofia, Vol. XXXI (1933). Napoli/Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: the Croce-channel; if Oxford notices one Italian intellectual organ in the 1930s, it’s this. [abebooks.it], [books.google.com]   Giovanni Gentile (1933). Introduzione alla filosofia. Milano: Treves–Treccani–Tumminelli.  Why it fits: a highly “exportable” title (an introduction), by a name Oxford could hardly avoid knowing of even when refusing the tradition. [abebooks.it]   Enrico Castelli (1933). Idealismo e solipsismo: e saggi critici. Roma: Signorelli.  Why it fits: philosophically legible keywords (“idealism,” “solipsism”), compact, and it also cues the Rome-based “philosophy-of-religion / debate culture” ecology that becomes important later. [abebooks.it] 1934. Three for 1934 (Italy; “Oxford-radar plausible”), keeping your mix of (i) a major-name monograph, (ii) a major channel, and (iii) a conceptually exportable spine—and sticking to items I can point to with decent bibliographic footing:   Benedetto Croce (1934). Orientamenti. Piccoli saggi di filosofia politica. Milano: Gilardi e Noto.  Why it fits: Croce is one of the few Italians Oxford could hardly avoid hearing about; and “political philosophy in short essays” is exactly the kind of portable Croce that could drift into an English library catalogue. [abebooks.com]   Benedetto Croce (dir.) (1934). La Critica. Rivista di letteratura, storia e filosofia (annata 1934). (Laterza; periodical).  Why it fits: a high-visibility channel marker; if an Oxford don knows one Italian philosophical periodical title in the 1930s, this is the likeliest. [libreriabacbuc.com]   Giovanni Gentile (1934). Origini e dottrina del fascismo (3rd rev. & expanded ed.). Roma: Istituto nazionale fascista di cultura.  Why it fits: even if Oxford wanted to avert its eyes, this is precisely the sort of “philosophy entangled with regime” text that could become notorious enough to cross borders as an object of attention (or alarm), i.e., “radar” even without sympathy. [librinlinea.it] 1935 Three for 1935 (Italy; and “Oxford-visible”), with the brief why it fits note:   Giovanni Gentile (1935). Il carattere dell’idealismo e la presente filosofia italiana. Firenze: L’Arte della Stampa (estratto; also catalogued as an offprint).  Why it fits: a compact, programmatic “Italy explains itself” statement by one of the two names Oxford would most likely have heard of even when it refused the substance. [books.google.com], [parsifal.urbe.it]   Benedetto Croce (1935). La Critica. Rivista di letteratura, storia e filosofia, vol. XXXIII (1935), Laterza (Bari/Napoli imprint).  Why it fits: “channel event” + major name. Even if Oxford didn’t read Italian idealism, it could easily know of Croce and of La Critica as a cultural-philosophical flagship. [libreriamarini.it], [it.wikipedia.org]   Archivio di storia della filosofia italiana (1935). (Roma: Stamperia Moderna; organo della Società filosofica italiana).  Why it fits: another high-utility “ecosystem marker” for your year-by-year table—exactly the sort of periodical that would be acquired by national libraries and could show up in foreign catalogues even when monographs don’t. [Emeroteca...le di Roma], [abebooks.com] 1936 Three for 1936 (Italy; “Oxford-visible”), with the brief why it fits note:   Nicola Abbagnano (1936). Il principio della metafisica. Napoli: Alberto Morano.  Why it fits: this is a clean, early “Abbagnano as systematic philosopher” marker (and you’ll later see him recur). Also: Morano/Napoli is exactly the kind of imprint an Oxford library might hold in the back shelves even if few read it. [amazon.it], [catalogo.s...t.unina.it]   Giovanni Gentile (1936). Memorie italiane e problemi della filosofia e della vita. Firenze: G. C. Sansoni.  Why it fits: major-name visibility + a title that reads like “Italy + philosophy + life” (broad, programmatic, exportable); also gives you a clean 1936 anchor for the Gentile/cultural-philosophy axis. [archive.org], [abebooks.com]   Benedetto Croce (1936). Vite di avventure, di fede e di passione. Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: Croce is one of the few Italians with consistent international “brand recognition” in the period; Laterza makes it library-friendly; and—even if it isn’t “technical philosophy”—it’s very likely to show up on a cultivated Oxford don’s shelf. [books.google.com], [abebooks.it] 1937 Three for 1937 (Italy; “Oxford-radar plausible”), keeping the same mini-rationale:   Giovanni Gentile, Storia della filosofia italiana dal Genovesi al Galluppi (2 vols.). Firenze: Sansoni, 1937.  Why it fits: big institutional “history-of-philosophy” infrastructure, plus Gentile is a name Oxford classicists/philosophers could at least recognise even when they refused to read him. [abebooks.com]   Benedetto Croce, La poesia. Bari: Laterza, 1937.  Why it fits: Croce is the most internationally “legible” Italian philosopher in the period, and Laterza is a high-visibility imprint; even if “poetry” sounds literary, Croce’s aesthetics is philosophy in Italian dress. [abebooks.com]   Società filosofica italiana, Rivista di filosofia, vol. 28. (Taylor editore), 1937.  Why it fits: this is a clean “channel marker” for what is still live in the Italian philosophical ecosystem in 1937; and journals are often what actually cross borders into libraries first. [books.google.com] 1938 Three for 1938 (Italy; and plausibly “Oxford-visible”), with the same brief “why it fits” note:   Benedetto Croce (1938). La storia come pensiero e come azione. Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: Croce is one of the very few Italian philosophers with real cross-border visibility in the period; and the title itself (“history as thought and as action”) is the kind of large, programmatic claim that could easily drift into an Oxford library and into conversation. [it.wikipedia.org], [laterza.it]   Giovanni Gentile (1938). Teoria generale dello spirito come atto puro (6ª edizione riveduta). Firenze: Sansoni.  Why it fits: even if Oxford ignored “attualismo,” Gentile is an unavoidable Italian landmark; and a revised major edition in 1938 is a clean year-marker for the still-dominant idealist infrastructure. [archive.org]   Johan Huizinga (1938). La crisi della civiltà. Torino: Einaudi.  Why it fits: not an Italian author, but an Italian publication event with very high “radar probability”: Einaudi + “crisis of civilisation” in 1938 is exactly the kind of book that might be noticed (and even read) by an Oxford “Renaissance man” type during the late-30s atmosphere. [ebay.com], [studiobenacense.it] 1939 Three for 1939 (published in Italy; and plausibly “Oxford-visible”), with the brief “why it fits” note:   Nicola Abbagnano (1939). La struttura dell’esistenza.  Why it fits: this is the cleanest single “new Italian philosophy” landmark of the year—existentialism reframed in a style that is unusually sober/analytic by Italian standards, and Abbagnano becomes a central node for your later decades. [treccani.it], [it.wikipedia.org]   Benedetto Croce (1939). Conversazioni critiche. Serie quinta. Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: Croce is one of the few Italian philosophers with genuine international “brand recognition” in the period; Laterza makes it library-friendly, and “conversazioni/critica” resonates with your Grice angle even if the conceptual apparatus is different. [abebooks.com]   Giovanni Gentile (1939; “finito di comporre nel 1939” for the later edition). Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento.  Why it fits: it’s Renaissance-facing and therefore naturally “Oxford-readable”; and it signals the idealist/historicist axis that still dominates the Italian scene at the very moment analytic philosophy is consolidating in Oxford. [archive.org] 1940 Three for 1940 (Italy; and radar plausible), with the brief “why it fits” note:   Nicola Abbagnano (1940). Antologia del pensiero filosofico. Torino: G.B. Paravia & C.  Why it fits: a big “teaching spine / canon-making” tool—exactly the kind of thing a university library acquires and a don can browse without committing to an Italian system. [abebooks.com]   Benedetto Croce (1940). Il carattere della filosofia moderna.  Why it fits: Croce remains one of the few Italian philosophers with real cross-border visibility; and the title is broad enough (“character of modern philosophy”) to look exportable, not local. [tecalibri.info]   Giovanni Gentile (21 June 1940). Roma eterna (article in Civiltà, a. 1, n. 2, pp. 4–8; manuscript also catalogued).  Why it fits: 1940 is a year where the political and the philosophical are entangled in Italy; this is a crisp dated “signal text,” and the fact it’s also tracked as a manuscript item makes it a nice parallel to your earlier “archival” approach. [patrimonio....senato.it] 1941 Three for 1941 (Italy; and each is a plausible “Oxford radar” item), with a quick why it fits note:   Eugenio Garin (1941). Il Rinascimento italiano. (Roma/Milano: Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale).  Why it fits: Renaissance intellectual history is an Oxford classicist’s natural “import channel”; also Garin is exactly the kind of Italian scholar who could be noticed even by people who ignore contemporary Italian system-building. [books.google.com]   Nicola Abbagnano (1941). Esistenza e sostanza. Milano: La Lampada.  Why it fits: “existence/substance” is a clean metaphysics hook; and Abbagnano is a major node in your A–Z anyway—so it’s a good year-marker that’s also philosophically central. [ebay.com]   Nicola Abbagnano (1941). Bernardino Telesio. Milano: Fratelli Bocca.  Why it fits: an Oxford-readable genre (Italian Renaissance/early-modern philosophy through a monograph on a canonical figure), and Bocca is a “serious” imprint that could show up in acquisition lists. [abebooks.it] 1942 Three for 1942 (Italy; as “radar plausible” as one can make a wartime year), with a quick “why it fits” note for each:   Eugenio Garin (1942). Filosofi italiani del Quattrocento. Firenze: Le Monnier.  Why it fits: a major canon-forming Renaissance-history-of-philosophy volume; exactly the kind of Italy→Oxford bridge-book (humanism, philology, intellectual history) that a Lit. Hum. reader could plausibly notice. [books.google.com]   Nicola Abbagnano (1942). Introduzione all’esistenzialismo. Milano: Bompiani.  Why it fits: the clean “movement gateway” for existentialism in Italy; short, legible, and the sort of thing that could be spotted even by Oxford people who “don’t read Italians” because the topic-name was unavoidable. [abebooks.it]   Cesare Luporini (1942). Situazione e libertà nell’esistenza umana. Firenze: Le Monnier.  Why it fits: philosophically “serious” existential/anthropological framing, and Le Monnier again makes it an Italy-wide academic imprint rather than a local pamphlet. [ebay.it] 1943 1943 Three for 1943 (Italy; keeping your “Oxford radar” criterion, i.e., things that could plausibly be noticed even if not read closely):   [] (1943). La dottrina del risveglio (Bari: Laterza).  Why it fits: Laterza is a highly visible imprint; and whatever Oxford thought of Evola, a “doctrine” book with classical/philological airs and a serious publisher is exactly the sort of odd Italian item that might turn up in acquisitions and provoke a raised eyebrow. [ebay.com]   [] (1943). La Critica. Rivista di letteratura, storia e filosofia (Vol. XLI, 1943; Laterza).  Why it fits: this is the Croce-channel at full strength in wartime. As a “radar” marker it’s very strong: an Oxford don could easily know of Croce and of La Critica even without tracking Italian monographs that year. [abebooks.it] [abebooks.it], [storiamedi...erranea.it]   [] (1943). Rivista di filosofia (Vol. 34, 1943; Formiggini / Società Filosofica Italiana).  Why it fits: another “channel-event” rather than a single authorial landmark—useful because 1943 is a disruption year, and journals are often the most reliable way to represent what was still intellectually “alive.” [books.google.com] [books.google.com], [static.fra...oangeli.it] 1944 Three for 1944 (Italy; “radar plausible”), with the same quick why it fits note—and I’ll keep #3 as a journal-event because 1944 is a disruption year where “what didn’t appear” is itself informative.   Michele Federico Sciacca (a cura di) (1944). Filosofi italiani contemporanei. Como: Dott. Carlo Marzorati Editore.  Why it fits: a compact “who’s who / scene map” of living Italian philosophy—exactly the sort of reference-work that could drift into an Oxford library and be browsed even by someone not tracking Italian debates. [abebooks.com]   Benedetto Croce (1944). Proemio alla Critica del 1944 (in La Critica, vol. 42, 1944).  Why it fits: not a monograph, but an unmistakable public “Croce speaks in wartime” marker; and Croce is one of the few Italian names with real odds of being noticed in Oxford even when the shelf is otherwise ignored. [bibliofilo...niroma1.it]   Archivio di Filosofia — publication interruption in 1944 (stops due to the German occupation; resumes 1945 with a new monographic format).  Why it fits: like your 1951 aut aut marker, this is a “channel event” that tells you about the conditions of Italian philosophical production; it’s also extremely useful for a year-by-year table because it explains absence rather than forcing you into a dubious “top book” in a year of disruption.  1945 Three for 1945 (keeping your “Oxford radar” criterion, and using Italian publications—book or book-equivalent—where the bibliographic year is reasonably secure):   Pasquale (1870). Sulla dialettica antica e moderna — Problemata dell’esistenzialismo (Italy, 1945).  Why it fits: it’s one of the clearest “Italy is processing existentialism as philosophy, not just mood” markers right at the war’s end; also the kind of title Oxford could notice simply because “existentialism” was the continental headline. [abebooks.com]   Nicola Abbagnano. Compendio di storia della filosofia (Torino: Paravia, 1945).  Why it fits: a classic “spine text” with a clean publisher and date—exactly the sort of work an Oxford library might acquire and that an Oxford don might consult when triangulating the Italian canon. [abebooks.com]   Archivio di Filosofia (revival year) — publication resumes in 1945 with a new monographic format.  Why it fits: like your aut aut (1951) pick, this is a channel-event: postwar reopening + international orientation + early Italian venue for phenomenology/psychoanalysis/philosophy of language. Even if Oxford didn’t read it, it’s the kind of thing that could show up on a learned person’s “there’s a new/renewed journal” radar. [istitutoen...astelli.it] 1946 Three for 1946 (Italy; book-form or “book-equivalent” and plausibly Oxford-visible), with the brief “why it fits” note: Abbagnano (1946). Storia della filosofia, vol. I (UTET, Torino).  Why it fits: UTET reference-works are exactly what an Oxford library acquires; and Abbagnano-as-historian is a strong “Italy speaking in an exportable genre” marker (history-of-philosophy as institutional infrastructure). Bontadini (1946). Dall’attualismo al problematicismo (La Scuola, Brescia).  Why it fits: a clean postwar theoretical “turn” book (idealism → problematicism/metaphysics). Also very relevant for your later Grice-thread because it’s explicitly about method and “the shape of the problem,” which is precisely what an Oxford philosopher would recognise as philosophy even when the vocabulary is foreign. Garin (ed.) (1946). Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem. Libri I–V (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola), ed. Garin.  Why it fits: a “Renaissance humanism + critical edition” landmark—highly legible to Oxford classicists/historians of ideas, and exactly the kind of book that could circulate internationally as scholarship rather than as an “Italian system.”  1947 Three for 1947 (Italy; chosen to be both “landmarks” and plausibly visible from Oxford), with the same why it fits gloss: Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana dal Medioevo al Risorgimento, Milano: Vallardi, 1947.  Why it fits: this is a genuine canon-making “big spine” history; and it’s the sort of work an Oxford Lit. Hum. mind might consult as soon as “Italy” and “philosophy” are in the same sentence. Paci, Esistenza ed immagine, Milano: Antonio Tarantola, 1947.  Why it fits: a very “postwar continental” Italian marker (existence + expression + art/literature), and the kind of title that could circulate as a signal of what Milanese phenomenology/existentialism is doing—especially for someone in Oxford who still reads broadly. Abbagnano, Introduzione all’esistenzialismo, Torino: Taylor, 1947.  Why it fits: this is the clean “movement gateway” book—short, portable, and exactly the sort of thing a curious Oxford philosopher might pick up just to know what “existentialism” is supposed to be.  1948 Three for 1948 (Italy; and each is the sort of “signal” that could plausibly have drifted into an Oxford library or a cosmopolitan don’s peripheral awareness):   Ernesto de Martino, Il mondo magico (1948).  Why it fits: a genuinely landmark postwar Italian intellectual event (anthropology of religion with heavy philosophical stakes: presence, ritual, “crisis”); the kind of book that might get noticed abroad precisely because it isn’t “technical Italian metaphysics” but a new genre with conceptual bite. Pfister, Il metodo della scienza: Indagine sistematica intorno allo sviluppo organico del fenomeno (Firenze: Sansoni, 1948).  Why it fits: philosophy/methodology of science is one of the most plausible cross-channel contact zones; “method” books are exportable, reviewable, and library-friendly. Bontadini (article landmark, 1948), “Per il ritorno della metafisica” (listed in the 1948 annual contents).  Why it fits: I’m deliberately using a periodical-as-event here (as with aut aut in 1951) because “return of metaphysics” is exactly the sort of slogan that could ping Oxford’s attention as a continental counter-move—especially just after the war.  1949 Three for 1949 (Italy; book(-level) items), chosen to be both defensible landmarks and plausibly visible from Oxford: Abbagnano, Storia della filosofia (UTET, Torino), 1949 (revised/reprinted volumes in that year are explicitly attested).  Why it fits: UTET reference-works are exactly what an Oxford library buys; and Abbagnano is the kind of Italian name that could appear on acquisition lists even when nobody reads Italian “systems.” Paci, Ingens sylva: saggio sulla filosofia di G. B. Vico (Mondadori, Milano), 1949.  Why it fits: Vico is a natural Oxford bait (classicist-friendly, language/philosophy adjacency), and Mondadori gives it wide circulation. Preti (ed.), Blaise Pascal, La morale dei gesuiti (dalle “Provinciali”) (Universale Economica / “Il Canguro”, Milano), 1949.  Why it fits: an Oxford-readable “classics of moral polemic” repackaged in a mass series; also a clean signal of the postwar Italian move toward public-facing philosophical culture. 1950 Three for 1950 (Italy; book(-level) publications), with the brief “why it fits Oxford radar” note: Paci (1950). Il nulla e il problema dell’uomo. Torino: Taylor.  Why it fits: a clean “Italian existentialism” landmark right at mid-century; short enough, titled boldly enough, and thematically close enough to Oxford’s own worries (mind, self, negation) that it’s the sort of thing a Grice-type browser could have noticed—even if only to dismiss it with a quip. Pareyson (1950). L’estetica dell’idealismo tedesco, vol. I: Kant, Schiller, Fichte. Torino: Edizioni di Filosofia.  Why it fits: “German idealism explained by an Italian” is exactly the sort of import/export channel that does cross borders; also Oxford classicists often had a soft spot for aesthetics done as history-of-ideas. Preti (1950). Newton (collana “I Filosofi”). Milano: Garzanti.  Why it fits: Newton + “I Filosofi” is tailor-made for Oxford visibility: a canonical scientific figure framed philosophically, in a portable series by a major publisher.  1951 Three for 1951 (keeping your “Oxford radar” constraint; mostly book-form, with one deliberate “journal-as-event” because 1951 is that kind of year in Italy): Abbagnano (1951). Storia del pensiero scientifico (ad uso del liceo scientifico). Torino: Paravia.  Why it fits: a “spine text” in the history/philosophy-of-science corridor—exactly the sort of thing that could drift into an Oxford library as a reference/teaching aid, and it signals the Italian neo-illuminist axis before it gets the later label. Rodolfo De Mattei (1951). Gli studi italiani di storia del pensiero politico (saggio storico, bibliografico). Bologna: C. Zuffi.  Why it fits: method/bibliography = maximally exportable. Also: Bologna imprint, and a “what’s been done in Italy” map—very plausible as a back-of-the-shelf tool for an Oxford don who is browsing rather than committing. Paci (founder) (1951). aut aut (founded in Milan, January 1951).  Why it fits: not a monograph, but a genuine “institutional event”—a new channel for phenomenology/existentialism/continental debate in Italy. This is precisely the kind of thing that might have registered in Oxford as “there’s a new review over there,” even if nobody read it carefully.  1952 Three for 1952 (keeping to your “Oxford radar” criterion; mostly book-form, but I’ll flag where something is course-notes / edited classic): Garin (1952). L’umanesimo italiano: filosofia e vita civile nel Rinascimento. Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: Laterza + Renaissance humanism is exactly the sort of Italian “serious book” an Oxford classicist-philosopher might actually notice (and it later becomes a canonical Garin marker). Mondolfo (1952). Problemi e metodi di ricerca nella storia della filosofia. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.  Why it fits: pure “method” (history of philosophy as discipline) — the most exportable genre into an Oxford library because it looks like scholarly self-instruction rather than a local doctrinal fight. Nicola Abbagnano (1952). Corso di pedagogia. Problemi di pedagogia sociale. 1951–1952 (Università di Torino, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia). Torino: Litografia Antonio Viretto.  Why it fits: it’s “archival-ish” (course-dispense/notes) but dated, place-fixed, and thematically very on-point for your project (norms, social formation, “communication” as a social problem)—and it also concretely situates Abbagnano in the Turin institutional ecology.  1953 Three for 1953 (book(-level) items; each with “why it fits Oxford radar”). I’m choosing ones that are (i) genuinely consequential in Italy and (ii) plausibly the sort of thing that might have drifted into an Oxford library or a don’s peripheral awareness.  Abbagnano, Storia della filosofia (UTET, Torino), 1953.  Why it fits: a big, institutional “spine” history—exactly the kind of multi-volume reference work that libraries acquire and that a Grice-type classicist might consult when triangulating “what Italians think happened.” Garin, Cronache di filosofia italiana (1900–1943) (Laterza, Bari), 1953/55 printing window (commonly indexed as 1955, but it’s close enough that it functions as the mid‑50s landmark you’re tracking).  Why it fits: it’s a canon-and-scene map of Italian philosophy—precisely the sort of “meta” book that would travel, be reviewed, and be browsable even by someone not following Italian technical debates. Paci (with Luigi Rognoni), L’espressionismo – L’esistenzialismo (ERI / Radio Italiana), 1953.  Why it fits: a compact “movement snapshot” from a major figure; also unusually plausible for Oxford visibility because it reads like a guide to what the Continent is up to, in the exact period Oxford is negotiating its own relationship to existentialism.  1954 Three for 1954 (books, published in Italy; each with a brief “why it fits Oxford radar” note): Paci (1954). Tempo e relazione. Milano: Taylor.  Why it fits: major, programmatic “Italian phenomenology/relationalism” marker; also the sort of title that an Oxford philosopher might notice because it wears metaphysics openly but argues with science/logic vocabulary. Pareyson (1954). Estetica. Teoria della formatività. Torino: Edizioni di Filosofia.  Why it fits: a clean landmark in aesthetics/hermeneutics; and it’s structurally “exportable” (an Oxford don could plausibly hear of it via continental aesthetics even if not reading Italian habitually). Bobbio (1954). L’esistenzialismo (lectures-as-book; Italian original year 1954).  Why it fits: short, legible, and exactly the sort of “movement snapshot” Oxford might encounter as a convenient guide to what the Continent is doing.  1955 Three for 1955 (all book-form, all very “radar plausible”), with the quick “why it fits” note: Garin, Cronache di filosofia italiana, 1900–1943 (Bari: Laterza, 1955).  Why it fits: a canon-making, scene-mapping work—exactly the sort of “what is Italian philosophy doing?” volume that could sit in an Oxford library and actually be browsed (and Laterza travels). Bobbio, Politica e cultura (Torino: Einaudi, 1955).  Why it fits: this is one of the cleanest “philosophy as civic argument” landmarks—also the most likely to cross into Anglophone awareness because it’s about the role of intellectuals, freedom, and the politics–culture relation. Paci, “1955–56” work-cluster (Pavia lectures / early aut aut period) as a book-like institutional marker; for a strict “book” entry use the nearest stable monograph anchor you already have for him, but 1955 is a real inflection point in his public output.  Why it fits: Paci is “the Italian channel” for phenomenology/existentialism and the journal ecology that Oxford would notice at least by reputation; 1955 is when his teaching + periodical presence becomes structurally visible.  1956 Three for 1956 (Italy; and “Oxford-radar” plausible), with the brief why it fits note: [] (1956). Storia del pensiero scientifico. (Milano: Mondadori, 1956/57 imprint varies by listing).  Why it fits: a big “history-of-scientific-thought” spine text by a major Banfi-circle philosopher; Oxford would notice this genre (history of science as shared canon) even when it ignored “Italian metaphysics.”    [] (1956). Ancora sull’esistenzialismo. Torino: Edizioni Radio Italiana.  Why it fits: Paci/phenomenology/existentialism as a clear “Italian scene” marker; also the sort of short, programmatic book that could circulate beyond Italy (and it’s exactly the kind of thing an Oxford don might read to see what the Continent is saying).  [] (1956). Teoria della norma giuridica. Torino: Giappichelli.  Why it fits: jurisprudence is one of the likeliest channels for Oxford contact; “norm theory” is exportable and close to the Hart-adjacent corridor.  1957 Three for 1957 (books; each with a brief “why it fits Oxford radar”): Geymonat (1957). Galileo Galilei. Torino: Einaudi.  Why it fits: Galileo + Einaudi is an easy bridge into Oxford interests (history of science with canonical overlap); it’s the sort of title that could plausibly be noticed even by people who “don’t read Italians.” Preti (1957). Praxis ed empirismo. Torino: Einaudi.  Why it fits: “praxis/empiricism” is legible to an Oxford audience, and Preti is a major conduit between phenomenology, philosophy of science, and a more analytic style—so it’s a good “Italy could have been readable” marker. Paolo Rossi (1957). Francesco Bacone: dalla magia alla scienza. (First published 1957).  Why it fits: Bacon is an Oxford-friendly name; the “magic → science” framing is the kind of conceptual history that travels well and could actually tempt a Grice-type browser. 1958 Three for 1958 (Italy; book(-level) items that are both defensible landmarks and plausibly “visible from Oxford”):  Bobbio (1958). Teoria della norma giuridica. Torino: Giappichelli.  Why it fits: an exportable, conceptually “analytic” jurisprudence text—close to the Hart/British-jurisprudence corridor, and therefore one of the likeliest Italian items to ping an Oxford philosopher’s peripheral awareness. Max Weber (1958). Il metodo delle scienze storico-sociali (intro & trans. Pietro Rossi). Torino: Einaudi (Biblioteca di cultura filosofica 21).  Why it fits: not “Italian philosophy” in authorship, but Italian philosophical culture in infrastructure—Einaudi + Rossi make this a major methodological reference-point, and methodology was one of the few continental genres Oxford would sometimes treat as respectable. Garin (1958). L’umanesimo italiano: filosofia e vita civile nel Rinascimento (2nd ed.). Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: a big “canon/identity” text for Italian intellectual history; and it’s the sort of Renaissance-facing title that could genuinely tempt an Oxford Lit. Hum. mind, even when it isn’t “technical philosophy.”  1959 Three for 1959 (book(-level) items; each with a quick “why it fits Oxford radar” note): Garin (1959). Cronache di filosofia italiana (1900–1943). Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: a canon-shaping meta-history of Italian philosophy itself—exactly the sort of “what are they up to over there?” volume that could land in an Oxford library and be browsed by a classicist-philosopher. Paci (1959, 2nd rev. ed.). Il nulla e il problema dell’uomo. Torino: Taylor.  Why it fits: clear existential/phenomenological “Italian scene” marker; also the kind of title an Oxford don might notice simply because it looks like the Continental version of the very problem Oxford keeps trying to dissolve into grammar. Norberto Bobbio & Franco Pierandrei (1959). Introduzione alla Costituzione. Bari: Laterza.  Why it fits: jurisprudence/political philosophy with high institutional visibility (Laterza; Constitution as topic); very “exportable” to Oxford because it sits close to the legal-philosophy axis.  1960 Three for 1960 (with the brief “why it fits” note you like), sticking to items that are plausibly visible from Oxford: Bobbio (1960). Teoria dell’ordinamento giuridico. Torino: Giappichelli.  Why it fits: a clean “institutional” landmark in legal philosophy—exportable, citable, and exactly the sort of Italian title that could enter British awareness via jurisprudence (Hart-adjacent territory). Geymonat (1960). Filosofia e filosofia della scienza. Milano: Feltrinelli.  Why it fits: a major philosophy-of-science marker in Italy, and the kind of “bridge” book (science ↔ philosophy) that an Oxford classicist-philosopher might actually notice. Nicola Abbagnano (1960). Linee di storia della filosofia. Torino: Paravia.  Why it fits: a compact, syllabus-friendly spine text—exactly the kind of thing that travels as a “good overview” even when nobody reads the whole national tradition. 1961 Three for 1961 (books/book-like items that could plausibly have shown up on Oxford’s “radar,” at least via reviews, catalogues, or sheer institutional weight): Abbagnano (1961). Dizionario di filosofia. Torino: UTET. Paci (1961). Tempo e verità nella fenomenologia di Husserl. Bari: Laterza. Banfi (1961). Filosofi contemporanei. Firenze: (ed. 1961). 1962 For 1962, three very defensible “Oxford-radar” Italian landmarks (book form, or at least book-like and widely citable) are: Eco, Opera aperta: Forma e indeterminazione nelle poetiche contemporanee (Bompiani, 1962).  Why it fits your brief: exactly the sort of Italian title a Renaissance-minded Oxford don might notice (aesthetics + theory of interpretation), and it becomes a durable reference-point.  Severino, Studi di filosofia della prassi (Vita e Pensiero, 1962).  Why it fits: “proper philosophy” (metaphysics/ethics/praxis) by a major name; also the sort of “Catholic-university” imprint that could circulate internationally. Geymonat, Galileo Galilei (Einaudi, 1962).  Why it fits: a clean bridge to Oxford interests (history of science; Galileo as shared canon), and Einaudi is a high-visibility publisher.  1963 For 1963, three “under Oxford’s radar but plausibly detectable” Italian(-published) landmarks I’d use are:  Eco (1963). Diario minimo. Milano: Mondadori.  Why it fits your criterion: a very Oxford-readable kind of book (learned parody, cultural criticism, style as argument). Even if not “core philosophy,” it’s exactly the sort of thing a Renaissance don might stumble on and enjoy. Paci, Enzo (dir.) (1963). Aut Aut (issues 73–78, 1963). Milano: Lampugnani Nigri Editore. Why it fits: it’s the Italian “channel” for phenomenology/existentialism, plus the kind of interdisciplinary material (Husserl/Marx/Wittgenstein) that would register, at least as a signal, even if not absorbed. Del Pra, Mario (1963). Sommario di storia della filosofia. Firenze: La Nuova Italia.  Why it fits: a canonical “teaching spine” text. Oxford cared about histories-of-philosophy (in its own way), and this is the sort of thing that could show up in a library acquisition list even if nobody read it cover-to-cover. 1964 For 1964, here are three book-form Italian publications that are (a) genuinely “in the air” intellectually and (b) easy to justify as landmarks—while keeping variety across areas: Eco, Apocalittici e integrati (Bompiani, 1964). Geymonat, Filosofia e filosofia della scienza (Feltrinelli, 1964). Norberto Bobbio, Italia civile. Ritratti e testimonianze (Laterza/Lacaita, Bari, 1964). 1965 For 1965, here are three solid “year markers” (books, published in Italy) that should be useful for your missing-entry detector: Eco, Apocalittici e integrati, Bompiani (Milano), 1965.  Why it’s a good marker: philosophy-adjacent (semiotics/culture theory) but absolutely a landmark in the Italian intellectual climate. Bobbio, Giusnaturalismo e positivismo giuridico, (originally 1965; Italian book publication).  Why it’s a good marker: cleanly “philosophy” (legal/political philosophy), and very canonical. Geymonat (with Renato Tisato), Filosofia e pedagogia nella storia della civiltà, Garzanti (Milano), 1965.  Why it’s a good marker: ties directly into the science/philosophy axis and the institutional education theme.  1966: Suggested “top 3” (Italy, book form)  Garin — Storia della filosofia italiana (Einaudi), 1966.  (This is basically the “institutional canon-maker” volume for the year; you already like Garin for 1967, and 1966 is a very natural anchor point.). Emanuele Severino — Ritornare a Parmenide (Vita e Pensiero), 1966.  (Strong metaphysics/ontology landmark, and “Parmenides” is exactly the sort of classical hook that plays well with your Grice frame.) Umberto Eco — Le poetiche di Joyce (Bompiani), 1966.  (If you’re allowing “philosophy adjacent” aesthetics/semiotics, this is a very solid 1966 marker—and it also prefigures the 1968 semiotics turn.)  1967. 1) Garin: the big institutional history move  Eugenio Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana (Einaudi; major multi-volume project; 1966/67 editions circulate).  Why it works for you: it’s not “technical philosophy,” but it is an agenda-setting canon-maker—exactly the kind of thing a cultivated Oxford classicist might browse when thinking “what are Italians doing?” 2) Operaismo as “philosophy adjacent but historically decisive” Tronti, Operai e capitale (Einaudi, 1966).  Why it works: if you allow political philosophy/theory into the table, this is a genuine landmark and gives you a strong “Italy is not only Croce/Gentile” signal. 3) Abbagnano as the “neo-illuminist/encyclopedic” presence around the cutoff. Not a single 1967 “masterwork” in the way Tronti is, but 1967 is a good year to represent Abbagnano as an ongoing central figure with:  Abbagnano as a hub figure (neoilluminismo; institutional presence; dictionary/history work nearby in time). Grice (recollecting): Oxford, 1930–1967, with Italy as the inconvenient mirror As I recall my Oxford years—now that the years have had the decency to become a shape—everything looks clearer than it ever did at the time. That is the chief advantage of memory: it edits. It is also its chief vice. I came up, in the old phrase, as a virgin. The Oxford Gazette, 10 April 1930, records the election to Scholarships; under Classics it prints my name—Herbert Paul Grice, Clifton College—and that is as near to a birth certificate as Oxford ever gives you. By the following Michaelmas I was meant to “come up,” a phrase that treats the undergraduate like a salmon and the University like a river. The thirties—the swingin’ thirties, London called them, as if noise could rename an age—were, for me, less swing than harness. Oxford does not swing; it disciplines. And Corpus, in particular, had a gift for making discipline feel like civilisation. Hardie embraced me early—“embrace” being Oxford’s word for what is essentially capture. One does not so much choose a tutor as acquire him the way one acquires a set of books: suddenly, permanently, and with a sense that resistance would be childish. Hardie was there like a compulsory text: inescapable, Scottish, and unembarrassed by seriousness. Looking back, I can see that my first decade in Oxford was dominated by what I once called, with the midlands habit of naming things too bluntly, the Northern Invasion. It would be more accurate to call it the Scottish or Lowland influx—Hardie, Ross, Paton, and their kind; men who brought with them a moral vocabulary that had the air of being carved in stone. The invasion was called “southern” only if you were standing in Aberdeen. From Birmingham it felt decisively north. I had one substitute tutor for one term only. He complained to Hardie that my obstinacy bordered on perversity. Hardie took it as a compliment, which is how one knows it was accurate. My temperament was empiricist in the old Lockean sense: not “science,” not “method,” but suspicion—especially of grand internal machinery. I was not fond of being told that morality required metaphysical plumbing. Meanwhile, if we glance south—south in the only serious sense, toward Italy—the picture is immediately different. Oxford in the thirties was congratulating itself for tidying language and feeling modern; Italy in the thirties was still conducting, at full institutional volume, a quarrel about Idealism, history, state, spirit, education—Croce and Gentile supplying the great competing temperaments, and a younger Abbagnano beginning to sound, by Italian standards, almost restrained: existence with a conscience, not spirit with a uniform. If Oxford was learning to distrust “systems,” Italy was still writing them with confidence, and sometimes with menace. Then the War came and stopped whatever swing there had been. I said goodbye—not only to Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square, but, in my private melodrama, adieu, Kant und Kompanie. It is remarkable how quickly “a syllabus” becomes “a memory” once one has uniform on one’s back. I did not publish in the forties. I count that, retrospectively, as good judgement—though Oxford would call it mere distraction. My 1941 Mind item, if you like, is a relic: something already in the pipeline from the old life. The rest of the decade I managed to keep my thoughts where Oxford prefers them: in rooms, in talks, in arguments that are public enough to matter and private enough not to become literature. Italy, by contrast, could not resist the temptation to print. Even in the disruption years the intellectual channels kept twitching—Croce’s journals, the re-starting of organs, the odd mixture of philosophical and political urgency. Post-war Italy turns almost at once to existentialism, method, metaphysics “returning,” the rebuilding of institutions and vocabularies. Oxford rebuilt, too—but with a different instinct: it rebuilt by pretending nothing had to be rebuilt. The fifties were my great decade of unpublishing. I did a little work for friends—Pears, for instance—and I let “Meaning” escape, mainly because Strawson, by then, had become the sort of colleague who could turn your reluctance into a practical problem. (A collaboration like “In Defense of a Dogma” is undogmatic by definition: one cannot quite take credit for the heresy when it is shared.) If I had a philosophy in the fifties it was not “ordinary language” as a badge, but ordinary language as a habitat: the place you return to when metaphysics begins to smell of theatre. Italy in the fifties, meanwhile, is busy in a way Oxford rarely notices: existentialism and phenomenology gain their Italian channels (Paci; aut aut), philosophy of science and history of science become visible and institutional (Geymonat; Rossi), jurisprudence and political philosophy become a bridge that could have been readable in Oxford had anyone wished (Bobbio), and the great “spine texts”—histories, dictionaries, canon-makers—accumulate, as if the country were rebuilding its mind by rebuilding its shelves. The sixties bring the swing back—with vengeance. I published a little more, partly because proceedings are hard to refuse and partly because thin edited volumes invite padding. But in retrospect what strikes me is not what I published; it’s what Oxford did to my sense of what philosophy is. Oxford did not immunise me from “isms”; it immunised me from enthusiasm for them. It taught one to treat every -ism as an invitation to ask: what exactly is being claimed, and in what words? A useful skill, though it can become a vice. Italy in the sixties looks like the opposite. It becomes exuberantly plural: canonical projects still going (Garin), radical political theory entering the bloodstream (Tronti), Severino making metaphysics sound again like a public danger, Eco making culture-theory look like philosophy by another route. It is the Dolce Vita of intellectual production: not because it is frivolous, but because it is abundant—too much life, too many books, too many claims to be the claim. If I have a moral to draw from the contrast, it is this: Oxford trained me to behave. As a tutee, I behaved; as a tutor, I behaved; in the Play Group I misbehaved, but gently, compared with the true hooligans. As a University Lecturer I had fun in a way that perhaps my attendees did not always share. As an Examiner I had fun too—more fun, in some moods—not out of seeing a candidate tremble, but because there is something genuinely Socratic, and a little gypsyish, in the act of testing whether a mind can move when it is pushed. And when I look back over the whole span—1930 to 1967—I see that the tidy Oxford story (“ordinary-language philosophy did it all”) is a charming simplification. Oxford did not merely produce Austin and his epigones; it produced an atmosphere: a style of resistance to grandiosity, a suspicion of printed systems, a preference for talk that can be corrected in the room. Italy, meanwhile, remained stubbornly European: willing to print, willing to systematise, willing to mix philosophy with politics, history, religion, education—willing, in short, to let philosophy be dangerous. So perhaps this is the best way to say it, in my own voice: Oxford kept me from catching Continental fevers; it did not keep me from catching Continental ideas. It merely insisted that I catch them politely, and only after asking what, exactly, they meant by the words they used to spread.