GRICE E SOLDATI

 

Luigi Soldati (Torino, Piemonte). Grice’s theory of reason‑governed conversational meaning and Soldati’s philosophical style as represented in Scritti filosofici (1930) converge on the idea that seriousness in thought does not require solemnity in expression, though they articulate this insight in different idioms. Grice reconstructs ordinary conversation as a rational, norm‑guided practice in which speakers exploit shared expectations of relevance, informativeness, and cooperativity to mean more than they explicitly say, making irony, understatement, and indirectness central to understanding how reason operates in everyday language. Soldati, writing from interwar Turin and within the cultivated Einaudi milieu, approaches the same phenomenon less analytically and more stylistically, treating philosophical discourse as something that can “smile” without sacrificing rigor, where obliqueness and wit are not deviations from reason but its natural vehicles. What Grice formalizes as implicature—reason working through what is left unsaid—Soldati exemplifies as philosophical tact: speaking “a little sideways” so that intelligence appears in restraint rather than declaration. In this sense, Soldati’s conversationally inflected philosophy can be read as an antecedent temperament to Grice’s later theory, while Grice supplies the explanatory framework that shows why Soldati’s humorous seriousness is not merely rhetorical decoration but a manifestation of reason at work under conversational constraints. Grice: Soldati, ho letto i tuoi Scritti filosofici del 1930 e devo dirti che a Torino riuscite a fare filosofia senza sembrare in punizione. Soldati: Caro Grice, sarà l’aria piemontese o Einaudi che ci guarda severo, ma qui anche i sillogismi sanno sorridere. Grice: A Oxford fingiamo di odiare la retorica, ma poi viviamo di implicature come di tè alle cinque.Soldati: Allora vedi che siamo d’accordo: chi parla seriamente, se è intelligente, lo fa sempre un po’ di traverso. Soldati, Luigi (1930). Scritti filosofici. Torino: Einaudi.