Contribution
A twelve-page paper that names non-natural meaning and gives it an analysis in terms of the speaker’s intentions, not the sign’s causal powers. After it there is a definite proposal for what it is for someone to mean something by an act on an occasion. It does not cover what makes an act a promise, a warning or a reproach, and it states its analysis “roughly” and as “a first shot”.
Key insight
Meaning something is a special way of trying to affect someone: one that works only if they see that you are trying. The handkerchief, the photograph and the pound note work whether or not the target sees the intention, so they mean nothing. The picture, the pointed door and the cut in the street work only through that recognition, so they do.
Assumptions
- Occasion meaning is basic. “The meaning (in general) of a sign needs to be explained in terms of what users of the sign do (or should) mean by it on particular occasions”. Grice says he is “sympathetic” to this and “aware that the point is controversial”. The paper does not argue it.
- The informative case first. The analysis is built on utterances meant to induce a belief, then extended to imperatives and to the cut.
- No psychological machinery. “I must disclaim any intention of peopling all our talking life with armies of complicated psychological occurrences.” Intentions are attributed by the criteria used for non-linguistic action.
Key results
- The five tests (pp. 377–378). For natural meaning:
- x means that p entails p;
- no “what is meant by” x;
- no “somebody meant by x”;
- no restatement with quoted words;
- a restatement as “the fact that …” is available. Non-natural meaning reverses all five.
- Against the causal theory (pp. 379–381). A tendency to produce an attitude, “dependent on an elaborate process of conditioning”, either admits the tail coat or is circular. Stevenson’s appeal to linguistic rules, to keep “Jones is tall” out of what “Jones is an athlete” means, “seems to involve us in another circle”.
- The analysis (p. 383–384). “A must intend to induce by x a belief in an audience, and he must also intend his utterance to be recognized as so intended. But these intentions are not independent; the recognition is intended by A to play its part in inducing the belief”. Shortly: “A uttered x with the intention of inducing a belief by means of the recognition of this intention.” Grice adds that A must not regard it as “a foregone conclusion that the belief will be induced … whether or not the intention behind the utterance is recognized”.
- The deliberate frown (p. 383). A deliberate frown has the same effect as a spontaneous one “only provided the audience takes it as intended to convey displeasure”. Remove the recognition and “the belief-producing tendency of the frown must be regarded as being impaired or destroyed”. So it means something.
- The generalisations (p. 385).
- (1) “A meantNN something by x” is roughly “A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the recognition of this intention”; what A meant is the intended effect.
- (2) “x meant something” is roughly “Somebody meantNN something by x”, with an exception: the red light means stop, but “it would be very unnatural to say, ‘Somebody (e.g., the Corporation) meantNN by the red-light change that the traffic was to stop.’” Still, “there seems to be some sort of reference to somebody’s intentions”.
- (3) Timeless meaning is “as a first shot” a statement about what “people” (vague) intend to effect by x.
- Reason, not cause (p. 385). The person who blushes when he hears a grunt he knows is meant to make him blush shows that the intended effect “must be something which in some sense is within the control of the audience”. The recognition is “a reason and not merely a cause”. Of the cut: “one cannot in any straightforward sense ‘decide’ to be offended; but one can refuse to be offended.”
- Primary intention only (p. 386). If I intend effect E by recognition and E to lead to F, F is not part of what I meant.
- Criteria for intentions (pp. 386–388). An explicit plan “counts fairly heavily” but is not conclusive. Without one, “an utterer is held to intend to convey what is normally conveyed (or normally intended to be conveyed), and we require a good reason for accepting that a particular use diverges from the general usage”. Between candidate intentions, “we tend to refer to the context … and ask which of the alternatives would be relevant to other things he is saying or doing”: a man calling for a “pump” at a fire “would not want a bicycle pump”.
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Natural and non-natural meaning differ on five linguistic tests | strong | the paired examples, pp. 377–378 |
| C2 | Causal-tendency theories of meaning are either too wide or circular | moderate | the tail coat and athlete cases, against Stevenson only |
| C3 | Speaker meaning is an intention to produce an effect by means of its own recognition | moderate | counterexamples to weaker conditions, pp. 381–384; stated as “roughly” |
| C4 | The intended effect must be one recognition gives a reason for, not merely causes | weak | the grunt-and-blush case, p. 385 |
| C5 | Sentence and timeless meaning reduce to speaker meaning | weak | asserted “as a first shot”; the red light is admitted as an awkward case |
| C6 | Linguistic intentions are read by the same criteria as non-linguistic ones | moderate | parallels, pp. 386–388 |
Concepts
- Natural meaning. The evidential sense of “mean”: the spots mean measles. Factive, and no one means anything by it.
- meaningNN (non-natural meaning). The sense of “A meant something by x” and of “x means ‘the bus is full’”.
- Utterance. “A neutral word to apply to any candidate for meaningNN”, with an act–object ambiguity. Gestures, pictures and a push all count.
- Primary intention. The effect the speaker intends to produce by means of recognition. Only it fixes what was meant.
Connections
Grice argues against C. L. Stevenson’s Ethics and Language (1944), chapter iii, the only work cited. The paper is the first link in the line that CLAIM-221 names. Strawson (1964) builds his account of illocutionary force on it, and Bach and Harnish (1979) build a theory of speech acts on that. “Logic and Conversation” (1975) turns from what a speaker means to what a speaker implicates. The rational-speech-act listener of THEORY-172, which inverts a model of a speaker, is a probabilistic descendant. Its papers credit Grice by name (LIT-816, LIT-821).
Bearing on the record
- CLAIM-221. The objection says the intention-based line exists and “plausibly” individuates teasing and reproach by speaker-internal states. This paper is that line’s foundation, and it confirms two things. First, Grice gives one case near reproach, the cut in the street. It counts as meaningNN because the offence depends on the recognition of the intention to offend. That is speaker-internal in CLAIM-221’s sense. Second, the paper is about meaning, not about act types. It says nothing about what separates teasing from reproach when the same thing is meant. So it does not yet meet the defeat condition of CLAIM-151. Strawson’s paper would have to.
- Two passages the relational side can use. Neither answers the
objection, but each puts the audience into the analysis rather than
leaving it as evidence alone.
- The intended effect must be “within the control of the audience”. For the cut, “one can refuse to be offended”. Whether the act succeeds depends on the hearer’s response to a reason. That is close to Austin’s uptake (QUESTION-073), though Grice treats it as a condition on what the speaker can intend, not on the act.
- Intentions are read by public criteria. “An utterer is held to intend to convey what is normally conveyed”, and context decides between candidates. This is the intentionalist’s own way to make the parties’ relations evidence of intention. It is the reading CLAIM-221 gives the rival and that CASE-069 reports Labov’s rule can bear.
- The traffic light. Grice concedes that conventional signals mean without anyone meaning by them, while “there seems to be some sort of reference to somebody’s intentions”. This is where institutional acts enter. It is consistent with CLAIM-221’s concession of the judge’s reprimand to Searle.
- THEORY-172. The rational-speech-act listener infers the speaker’s intended referent, which matches Grice’s analysis only in part. In the formulation of LIT-821, the speaker chooses words by their informativeness to a literal listener. Nothing in it is an intention that the choice be recognised. This is the record’s observation, not Grice’s: THEORY-172 is Gricean in its inference, not in its analysis of meaning.
- No instruction for machine-learning practice; nothing for the anthology.