Description
What is the philosopher Grice's account of meaning? in the simplest terms?
Explanation & Answer
Hence Grice begins with an attempt to isolate a particular kind of meaning, which he calls ‘communicative meaning’, or ‘nonnatural meaning’ (meaningNN).
NATURAL VS. NON-NATURAL MEANING
Natural Meaning [“Noncognitive meaning”]
“Those spots mean measles.”
Nonnatural Meaning (MeaningNN) [“Communicative meaning”]
“Those three rings on the bell mean that the bus is full.”
Grice’s endeavor is to produce an account of meaningNN.
Grice considers and rejects a causal account of meaningNN.
Grice finds two things wrong with the causal account: 1. It omits the notion of intention. What needs to be specified is not the effect that tends to be produced, but the effect that the speaker intends to produce.
2. It concentrates on the idea of a standard meaning (of an expression or utterance), and ignores what a particular speaker may mean on a particular occasion.
Grice further objects, more controversially, that the causal theory gets the priorities between “utterance meaning” and “speaker meaning” backwards. That is, “the meaning of a sign needs to be explained in terms of what users of the sign mean by it on particular occasions” (p. 94).
REFLEXIVE-INTENTION ACCOUNT Grice develops his account in stages.
Stage 1 introduces an intention.
Stage 2 adds a reflexive intention. Stage 3 introduces an additional reflexive intention connecting the first intention to the intended effect on the hearer.
reference
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grice/
http://www3.nd.edu/~jspeaks/courses/2007-8/93914/_HANDOUTS/grice.pdf
http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Courses/PHI534-2012-13/Neale/NealeOnGrice.pdf
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