Flo flo
GRICE E CONTESSA Littlejohn
citing Floridi: “[M]isinformation is … semantic content that is false … Disinformation
is simply misinformation purposefully conveyed to mislead the receiver into
believing that it is information (Floridi 2011: 260).” Littlejohn’s attending
comment: “There's continued disagreement in the literature on lying whether
lies must be false. Some have argued that they must be (Benton 2018; Holguín
2019). Some argue that lies needn't be false. Fallis (2009) and Saul (2012)
allow for 'true' lies (i.e., statements believed to be false by the speaker
that turn out to be true). Early accounts of disinformation treated it as false
content that the disinformant wanted the audience to believe was genuine
information (Floridi 2011).In his seminal “Probability, desirability, and mood
operators” (1973), Grice argues that a structure expressing either desirability
or credibility is not merely analogous to each other. A structure expressing
desirability or credibility can each be replaced by a more complex structure --
containing a common element.Making use of a superscript notation – as he
had done with a subscript notation in ‘Vacuous names,’ Grice proposes two types
of operators, OpA and OpB. In combination, OpA
and OpB replace – and thus, philosophically improve on -- Davidson's
pf and pr. The operators grouped together as OpB represent a ‘mode’
– as Grice prefers over ‘mood,’ after a criticism he received by Follesdal for
using the former over the latter -- close to an ordinary indicative and an
ordinary imperative. The operators may be divided into two types – now merging
the superscript with the earlier subscript notation:OpB1,
and OpB2, corresponding to ⸠ and !, respectively. A-type
operators, on the other hand, represent some degree or measure of acceptability
or justification. A-type operators, then, may take scope over either of the B-type
operators, yielding OpA1
+ OpB2 + a or OpA1 + ! + pfor an
expression of It is desirable that a.and
OpA1 + OpB1 + por OpA1
+ ⸠ + pfor an expression of It is probable that p.Moving on from operators to
consider the psycho-logical aspect -- seriously understood as a concept
within a theory of the psychic -- of reasoning, Grice proposes two basic
propositional attitudes: J-acceptance and V-acceptance, to be considered as
more or less closely related to believing and wanting. Generalising over
attitudes using the symbol 'ψ', Grice proposes X ψ1 p for V-accepts.
andX ψ2 plfor J-accepts.(For his definition of J-accepting in terms
of V-accepting, see his “Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to
the bizarre)”. There are further, more complex attitudes ψ3 and ψ4.
These are reflexive: attitudes that x can take to V-accepting or J-accepting. ψ3
is concerned with an attitude of V-accepting towards either J-accepting [p] or
J-accepting [~p] -- x wants to decide whether to believe p or not. ψ4
is concerned with an attitude of V-accepting towards either x V-accepts [p] or
x V-accepts [~p] -- x wants to decide whether to will p or not. On the
understanding that willing p gives an account of intending p – vide his
“Intention and uncertainty” British Academy Lecture, 1971 --, this offers a
formalisation of intending.Grice notes that for each attitude there are two
further sub-divisions, depending on whether the attitude is focused on an
attitude of x or of some other person. Therefore x ψ3A [p]is
true just in case x ψ2 [x ψ1[p] or x ψ1 [~p]]lis
true.x ψ3B [p] is true just in case x V-accepts (ψ2)
[y V-accepts (ψ2) [x J-accept (ψ1) (p] or x J-accept (ψ1)
[~p]is true. Grice suggests an operatorOpiα corresponding
to each particular propositional attitude ψ3B, where 'i'
is a dummy taking the place of either 1, 2, 3, or 4, and where 'α' is a dummy
taking the place of either 'A' or 'B'.Grice now has four sets of
operators, corresponding to four sets of propositional attitudes, which Grice describes
as follows:Op1α volitive modeA cases: intentional sub-modeB cases: imperative
sub-modeOp2α judicative modeA cases: indicative sub-modeB cases: informative
sub-modeOp3α volitive interrogative modeA cases : reflective
sub-modeB cases : inquisitive sub-modeOp4α
Judicative interrogativeA cases: reflective sub-modeB cases: imperative
sub-modeFor all 'modes' except the first, the syntax may not reflect the
distinction between the A and B cases. Grice notes that – his words: “in any
application of the scheme to ordinary discourse, this fact would have to be
accommodated.”And he does in a segment to the “Aspects of reason,” where he
explores the adverbial: “for your information” – hardly “for your
disinformation,” or “for your misinformation.” “It also seemed to me that there is a corresponding
distinction between two "uses" of ordinary indicatives; sometimes one
is declaring or affirming that p. one's intention being primarily to get the
hearer to think that the speaker thinks that p; while sometimes one is telling
the hearer that p, that is to say, hoping to get him to think that p. It is
true that in the case of indicatives, unlike that of volitives, there is no
pair of devices which would ordinarily be thought of as mood-markers which
serves to distinguish the sub-mood of an indicative sentence; the recognition
of the sub-mood has to come from context, from the vocative use of the name of
H, from the presence of a speech-act verb, or from a sentence-adverbial phrase
(like "for
your information").This suggests that Grice is thinking of his scheme in
the Performadillo talk – as he had anticipated in “Intention and uncertainty”
with a general operator of ‘acceptance’ -- as at least in principle applicable
to an analysis of everyday language, of the type that would have pleased
Austin, if not Austen (Grice plays on the fact that his prose need not satisfy
neither Austen nor Macaulay!)For present purposes, in the Performadillo talk,
Grice proposes to concentrate on the simple judicative and volitive operators. This
is because these express his basic psychological categories of J-accepting and
V-accepting. Grice has, however, established that it is possible to discuss more
complex operators, and therefore more complex psychological attitudes, a
topic to which he was indeed to return in the “Pirotological progression”
section of his “Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the
bizarre” invoving iterated operators, and an account of incorrigibility and
privileged access that may provide a formalization for ‘akrasia’ – later
developed in his ‘Davidson on weakness of the will’ in Hintikka and Vermazen.The
attitudes expressed by t, and by the pair and !, and !, ('T shall do A' and 'Do
A) can be expressed by a general psychological verb of 'accepts'. So, for
instance, 'x J-accepts [pl' is 'x accepts [+pl' and 'x V-accepts (pl' is 'x
accepts [spl'.REFERENCESContessa, Gabriele (). Science denial. Floridi,
Luciano (2011). The philosophy of information. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.Grice, H. P. (1973). Probability, desirability, and mood
operators: Performadillo, Texas. Grice, H. P. (1977). The Immanuel Kant
memorial lectures, Stanford.Grice, H. P. (2001). Aspects of reason.Littlejohn,
C. Disinformation. Philosophical studies. Speranza, J. L. (n.d.) This and that – for
“Il Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice”.
Commenti
Posta un commento