FLORIDI

 

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, Op^A and Op^B.

In combination, Op^A and Op^B replace – and thus, philosophically improve on -- Davidson's pf and pr.

The operators grouped together as Op^B 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:

Op^B₁, and Op^B₂, 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

Op^A₁ + Op^B₂ + a

or

Op^A₁ + ! + p

for an expression of

(i)             It is desirable that a.

and

Op^A₁ + Op^B₁ + p

or

Op^A₁ + ⸠ + p

for an expression of

(ii)           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

(iii)         V-accepts.

and

X ψ² pl

for

(iv)          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 ψ³_A [p]

is true just in case

x ψ² [x ψ¹[p] or x ψ¹ [~p]]l

is true.

x ψ³_B [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 operator

Opⁱ_α

corresponding to each particular propositional attitude ψ³_B, 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 mode

A cases: intentional sub-mode

B cases: imperative sub-mode

Op²α judicative mode

A cases: indicative sub-mode

B cases: informative sub-mode

Op³_α volitive interrogative mode

A cases : reflective sub-mode

B cases : inquisitive sub-mode

Op⁴_α Judicative interrogative

A cases: reflective sub-mode

B cases: imperative sub-mode

For 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'.

REFERENCES

Contessa, 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”.