Signifying and Intending

 H. P. Grice knew what he was talking about. Or rather, about which he was talking! And no, the implicature is not: why shouldn't he? Most people at Oxford did not! 

Amazingly, he managed to write an essay on 'signifying' calling it 'meaning' -- true, one would NOT say that a word is a SIGN, but, as he points out, things that 'signify,' notably utterers NEED not, cannot, be SIGNS, either!

And the analysans goes straight to define it -- Grice uses Forti's symbol, =def -- in terms of intending.

Many remarks on intending point to the fact that you cannot intend to climb Mt. Everest on hands and knees --. This restricts what you can 'signify'. You cannot 'signify' 'Let's change the subject' by uttering 'Impenetrablity,' because as Dodgson notes: "I cannot expect that -- and it's very wise of you, Alice, to keep asking. 'Of course you don't until I tell you.

But the definition of 'intending' itself had to wait for Grice's method from the banal to the bizarre -- which featured a transform from Stout to Prichard.

In his analysis of what he saw Stout's too clever approach to 'certainty' Grice was having in mind Hampshire's and Hart's failed account of 'intending' in terms of 'deciding' with 'certainty.'

In endorsing a Prichardian account he is thinking PEARS, who has it right. No certainty need be involved -- and Grice KNEW since he had spent some time on 'x is certain' versus 'it is certain' vis-a-vis Descartes's clear and distinct perception -- the topic of certainty in WoW as related to his Causal Theory of Perception in general.

But the Sceptic features large. In WoW Grice has his own pupil, Strawson, challenging:

"You mean that I bring you a newspaper, surely" 

For:

"What is your ground for saying that what you mean is that I bring you an essay, instead?"

Similar questions are raised in the British Academy lecture, but not in terms of a pupil, but anyone who may challenge any INTENDER that he intends what he uttters he intends.

Grice finds in retrospecct that his Stoutian analysis was a very easy prey for the sceptic.

And while he interludes with ACCEPTANCE for a while, he runs to Prichard for help.

A very clever chap, Prichard was, who realised that 'will that...' is the key.

Pears was listening. And although the days of their joint seminars in the philosophy of action -- along with J. F. Thomson, too -- were over -- Grice's philosophical wonder never left him!