H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: ORTES

 G.: Let us begin with Ortes where he begins to annoy everyone: prezzo and valore are not the same thing. S.: Which is already enough to make a nation of shopkeepers sound metaphysical. G.: Nations of shopkeepers are always metaphysical when they say they are being practical. S.: Then price is the market magnitude, and value is what is at stake beneath it. G.: Roughly, yes. Ortes forces the distinction because language likes to confuse convenience with essence. S.: And you want to take that into significatio. G.: Inevitably. For signification too has its price and its value, if one is willing to be slightly Venetian in spirit. S.: Then let us have the formula. G.: S(x, y, z). S.: With x the bearer? G.: Yes. The bearer or vehicle, if you like. It may be an utterer’s utterance, or, if one insists on broadening the field, a dark cloud. S.: z the interpretant or addressee. G.: Quite. And y the content, the thing reportable by a that-clause. S.: So if the cloud darkens, S(x, y, z) might be: this cloud signifies to some interpreter that it is going to rain. G.: That is the broad form, yes. S.: But you immediately begin to tighten it. G.: Naturally. Because once one speaks of clouds one is in danger of becoming meteorological rather than philosophical. S.: Yet you said intention is always involved. G.: In the interesting cases, yes. That is why I am happiest when x is an utterer or an utterance under an utterer’s governance. S.: So dark clouds are useful only as the common man’s threshold. G.: Exactly. They remind us that signification can be broader than language, but not that all signification is equally philosophically central. S.: Then your concern is with the utterer’s case. G.: Entirely. An utterer means something to an addressee by producing a vehicle. That is the live centre. S.: Then S(x, y, z) is already teleological. G.: It must be. Otherwise one gets only correlation, not significance in the stronger sense. S.: Good. Now where does Ortes enter? G.: By teaching us to distinguish measurable price from worth. In my neighbourhood, one may say something similar of explicitness and implication. S.: Explain. G.: “He has beautiful handwriting” is the optimal way to communicate that he has beautiful handwriting. S.: Because it says so. G.: Quite. It is low-cost, high-directness, almost perfectly suited to that content. S.: But not the optimal way to communicate that he is hopeless at philosophy. G.: Exactly. If I use it in collection to communicate that second content, I rely on context, institutional tone, and the hearer’s wit. S.: So the implicatum belongs to the significatum, but not optimally. G.: Very good. That is the first distinction. S.: Then “optimal” here means what? Most direct? Least cancellable? Best fitted to the content? G.: All close relatives. I am not yet willing to define it in one primitive. But certainly directness, stability, and resistance to cancellation matter. S.: So the explicitum is usually more optimal than the implicatum. G.: Usually, yes. Though we must keep a cautious reserve, because human life is indecently complex. S.: Naturally. If the weekly essay notice reads “Typewriting disallowed. Handwriting counts,” then “He has beautiful handwriting” acquires local force. G.: Exactly. It then becomes not merely praise of penmanship but perhaps an evaluative contrast in a setting where handwriting has absurdly been made relevant. S.: Yet even there it is still more optimal for penmanship than for metaphysical deficiency. G.: Entirely. The route to penmanship is short and licensed. The route to philosophical hopelessness is inferential and defeasible. S.: So cancellability marks lower optimality. G.: It is one good sign of it. If I say, “He has beautiful handwriting, though I do not mean to suggest anything about his philosophy,” the implicatum evaporates politely. S.: Whereas if you say, “He has beautiful handwriting, though I do not mean he has beautiful handwriting,” the floor gives way. G.: Exactly. The explicitum does not cancel so kindly. S.: Except in irony. G.: Quite. But irony is a special disturbance. It gives us what we may call disimplicatum if we are feeling barbarously playful. S.: You are. G.: Occasionally. The point remains: the explicitum is harder to retract without contradiction or collapse. S.: So in axiological terms, explicit signification is usually higher-value? G.: Careful. That sounds too moral too quickly. I would rather say: it is often higher in communicative worth relative to stability and fit. S.: Then price and value reappear. The implicatum may be cheaper or dearer? G.: Better to say that the explicitum has a more settled exchange-rate between bearer and content. S.: Ah. Like money pretending to wealth. G.: Not quite. Ortes would scowl. Rather: the explicitum gives you a more publicly ratified measure, while the implicatum may carry subtler value in the right market. S.: So “He hasn’t been to prison yet” is optimal for saying that he hasn’t been to prison yet. G.: Exactly. S.: But not optimal for saying that he is potentially dishonest. G.: Nor for saying, in the context of a new appointment at a bank, that his colleagues are treacherous. S.: Though one might manage either under pressure. G.: Indeed. But one manages them at inferential cost. S.: And that cost is part of the axiological story. G.: Precisely. Axiology enters because we begin to compare forms of signification by better and worse, fitter and less fit, higher and lower worth relative to content and uptake. S.: The Italians would say assiologia and look satisfied with themselves. G.: They often do. The Germans called it Axiologie and looked still more credentialed. S.: But your real question is whether optimality can itself be analysed. G.: Exactly. If we say that one signifying route is more optimal than another, have we explained anything, or merely priced our preferences decorously? S.: Then perhaps one should define optimality by what the valuer does. G.: That is promising. Hartmann would not wholly approve the vulgarity, but he might tolerate the structure. S.: Let us try it. A valuer prefers one vehicle-content fit over another because it better secures intended uptake with less inferential burden and less vulnerability to cancellation. G.: Very good. That is already better than shouting “value” and retiring. S.: So the explicitum is not simply higher because it is explicit, but because hearer and speaker can coordinate on it more securely. G.: Exactly. Security of coordination is one major ingredient. S.: Then S(x, y, z) becomes axiological when we compare rival xs for the same y and z. G.: Splendid. That is the real turn. S.: So if I wish to communicate y to z, I may choose x1, a direct sentence, or x2, a hint, or x3, a loaded allusion. G.: And we ask which bears higher communicative value under the circumstances. S.: Which is not always x1. G.: Precisely. That is why we cannot become merely schoolmasterish. Sometimes implication is the better instrument. S.: Give an example. G.: Tact. If someone asks whether a third party is entirely reliable, “He has never once been late” may, in some contexts, be more fitting than “He is unreliable in intimate trust but decent with clocks.” S.: Because explicitness can be vulgar or disproportionate. G.: Exactly. The less optimal route in one register may become more optimal in another because social purpose changes. S.: Then optimality is purpose-relative. G.: Necessarily. S.: That complicates the price-value analogy. G.: Or improves it. Ortes’ own distinction reminds us that a measurable surface and a deeper worth may diverge. So too here. What is immediately measurable in explicitness may not exhaust conversational worth. S.: Then the implicatum may have lower directness-value but higher tact-value. G.: Very well put. S.: So we need dimensions. G.: Yes, but let us not become engineers too early. S.: Not after Aconzio’s marshes. G.: Quite. Still, the dimensions would include at least these: directness, stability, cancellability, social aptness, and inferential elegance. S.: Inferential elegance sounds expensive. G.: It often is. But expensive things may be worth buying if the company is right. S.: Then “He has beautiful handwriting” at collection has low directness for the philosophical judgment, high tact perhaps, high cancellability, and medium elegance if the hearer is not an idiot. G.: Admirably tabulated. S.: Thank you. G.: Do not become a clerk. S.: Only an accountant of significance. G.: That is worse and better at once. Now, what about the dark cloud? S.: You said we need not concern ourselves much with non-utterers signifying. G.: In the central theory, no. Because the cloud does not mean that it will rain in my preferred sense. S.: It merely indicates. G.: Or signals in a looser natural way. The absence of intention weakens the analogy. S.: Yet if a painter paints a dark cloud over a village scene, intending the audience to gather menace or coming rain, then intention returns. G.: Exactly. And then we are back in my country. S.: So x may be a cloud physically, but only a represented or deployed cloud philosophically. G.: Better. Or a cloud enlisted by an utterer. S.: Then the triad needs an utterer behind x if signification is to have full axiological articulation. G.: Usually, yes. Otherwise we get natural indication, which is not uninteresting, but is not the heart of conversation. S.: Then “suggestum” enters where? G.: As one member of the wider significatum. The significatum may include explicitum, suggestum, indicatum, implicatum. S.: You are multiplying nouns. G.: Not beyond necessity, I hope. Each marks a slightly different mode of conveyedness. S.: And the explicitum is the one whose value is usually highest because its fit to y is most stable. G.: Usually, yes. S.: While implicatum is lower in stability because cancellable. G.: Exactly. To say that implicatum is part of significatum is not to say it is equal in every value-dimension. S.: Then perhaps Ortes helps because he reminds us that categories blur if language is left sloppy. G.: Quite. Price is not value. Explicitness is not worth. Implication is not nothing. The market of meaning needs distinctions or it degenerates into sentiment. S.: You make it sound as if philosophy were a merchant republic. G.: Venice had its uses. S.: So one might say: the explicitum is like coined money, the implicatum like credit, reputation, or anticipated value. G.: That is temptingly good, though I fear Ortes would make us specify every term until the metaphor was no longer fun. S.: He sounds tiresome. G.: Cool Venetian intelligence often does. One is grateful only later. S.: Then let us return to cancellation. Why is cancellability a sign of lower optimality? G.: Because if a bearer is well fitted to a content, one should not be able to detach the content without undermining the act. S.: So the easier the cancellation, the less tightly fitted the value-relation. G.: Exactly. The implicatum depends on context and presumptive reasoning, so it is more negotiable. S.: Hence lower certainty-value, though perhaps higher tact-value. G.: Very good. S.: Then irony complicates everything. G.: Naturally. Irony lets us detach apparent explicitum from intended content so violently that the old hierarchy trembles. S.: In irony the explicit wording may be precisely the least optimal route to its own surface content. G.: Yes. “What a genius” said over a shattered vase is not optimally fitted to genius at all. S.: Unless the speaker has been concussed. G.: That would improve the case medically, not semantically. S.: Then irony is a systematic dislocation of optimality. G.: An elegant way of putting it. It creates a surface explicitum of low genuine fit and forces the hearer toward another content of higher intended fit. S.: So your disimplicatum returns. G.: Barbarously, yes. One may keep the joke if one keeps it fenced. S.: Then does the explicitum ever lose all priority? G.: In irony, parody, quotation, and some ritual uses, its priority as bearer of intended content may be secondary. But even there it remains structurally indispensable. S.: Because the hearer must first register it as surface. G.: Precisely. Even the badly fitted route is still the route. S.: So the explicitum is almost impossible to cancel, but possible to subordinate. G.: Better. That is the right distinction. S.: Then the value of a signifying act cannot be read off merely from its surface explicitness. G.: Exactly. Hence our need of a more nuanced axiological grammar. S.: Grammar again. G.: Philosophy always comes back to grammar once the Germans have had their parade. S.: And what would the valuer do in this grammar? G.: The valuer compares signifying acts by their success in achieving intended uptake under the accepted purposes of the exchange. S.: So optimality is tied to purposive fit, not to naked assertion. G.: Yes. That is the mature view. S.: Then “That’s good value” becomes a lovely example. G.: Indeed. It may report a comparison of price and worth, recommend a purchase, express approval, or mildly rebuke extravagance. S.: And the phrase itself dresses approval in a market costume. G.: Exactly. I said as much in St John’s, though probably to no avail. S.: So the phrase’s explicitum is economic, while the implicatum may be practical or evaluative. G.: Yes. The market lexicon lets us smuggle attitudes under the sign of objectivity. S.: Which is itself axiologically interesting. G.: Very much so. We “price” attitudes while pretending to “value” reasons. S.: That is almost your whole point. G.: It is one of them. And Ortes helps because he treats the slippage between nominal measure and genuine worth as more than a verbal nuisance. S.: It becomes a source of bad theory and bad policy. G.: Exactly. So too in semantics. Sloppy confusions between what is said, what is meant, what is suggested, and what is indicated produce bad philosophy. S.: Then the study of significatio becomes itself value-laden. G.: Necessarily. We rank forms of signifying by better and worse, more and less apt, more and less worthy of rational uptake. S.: Which means significatio is not a flat relation. G.: Not at all. It has internal economy. S.: A Venetian ledger. G.: If you must. S.: I must. Now, let us test a harder example. “He hasn’t been to prison yet.” G.: Good. Explicitum: he has not yet been to prison. S.: Implicatum in some contexts: he is the sort of man for whom prison is a live possibility. G.: Or, in the context of his taking up work at a bank, that those around him are less trustworthy than appearances suggest. S.: So the same bearer can carry very different lower-optimal contents. G.: Exactly. Which shows that implicata are more context-sensitive and therefore less stable in value. S.: While the explicitum remains almost embarrassingly plain. G.: Yes. One could cancel the suggestion: “He hasn’t been to prison yet, though I imply nothing discreditable.” S.: And the thing survives. G.: Quite. S.: So if one were pricing the act, the explicitum has higher face value, the implicatum more speculative worth. G.: That is rather good. S.: I am improving. G.: Alarmingly. Now, one must also note that the less optimal is not thereby philosophically less interesting. S.: On the contrary. G.: Exactly. The whole fascination of implicature lies in the fact that lower direct fit may coexist with higher social cleverness. S.: Or higher deniability. G.: Which is often the same thing among civilised sinners. S.: So perhaps “optimal” is ambiguous between best for truth-communication and best for social manoeuvre. G.: Splendid. That ambiguity must be kept before us. S.: Then the valuer changes. G.: Precisely. What the truth-loving analyst prizes may not be what the tactful host prizes. S.: Or what the timid don prizes. G.: Quite. “Jones has beautiful handwriting” is a masterpiece if one wants to condemn while appearing merely observant. S.: Lower truth-optimality for the condemnation, higher social-optimality for the common room. G.: Exactly. Axiology becomes plural. S.: Hartmann again. G.: He will not leave. But we may use him sparingly. S.: Then perhaps the right formula is this. For any S(x, y, z), the worth of x relative to y and z varies by dimension: explicit fit, social tact, inferential economy, cancellability, and purposive success. G.: Very good indeed. That is almost respectable enough to publish. S.: Almost? G.: It still needs drying. S.: I can dry it. G.: You usually do. Now, what of “suggestum”? S.: I rather like it. It marks what is nudged rather than stated. G.: Yes. It is less committed than explicitum, less strongly inferential than some implicata, and perhaps more atmospheric. S.: Then “indicatum” would be the naturally or quasi-naturally pointed-at content. G.: Good. That helps keep clouds in their place. S.: And implicatum the rationally recoverable extra content under cooperative assumptions. G.: Precisely. S.: So all four belong within significatum, but not on a level plain. G.: Exactly. They occupy different axiological positions. S.: Then your theory is less egalitarian than one first thinks. G.: Civilisation rarely is. S.: And Ortes would approve because he hated confusion of categories. G.: He would at least approve the distinction before disapproving the style. S.: Venetian enough. G.: Entirely. Now, let us ask the final question. Is “optimality” itself primitive? S.: I should say no. It is analysable through what valuers and interpreters do under purposive constraints. G.: Good. So we descend from abstract worth to practices of uptake, preference, coordination, and success. S.: Which is more Gricean than merely shouting “value.” G.: Exactly. Axiology must be domesticated by rational action if it is not to become incense. S.: Then the final moral? G.: That significatio is a value-paradigmatic concept because not all ways of signifying bear their contents equally well. Explicitum is usually the higher-value route for the content it explicitly bears. Implicatum belongs to the full significatum but is often lower in stability and higher in finesse. And Ortes helps because he reminds us that measured surface and genuine worth are never safely the same thing. S.: Dry enough? G.: Sufficiently Venetian, with just enough Oxford shopkeeping to offend both.