Implicit Definitions in Carnap and Grice

* * * * By J. L. Speranza, of the Grice Club

* * * * * * * * for the Carnap Corner



**************************** NOT MUCH TO SAY, actually, but I may! I see that the issue of 'implicit' definition features well in Carnap's elaborations on Frege.

Indeed, Boghossian, whom I met, discusses two types of analytic:

frege-analytic

and

carnap-analytic

to which I will of course add

grice-analytic

For Boghossian (discussed in a pdf online in "Analysis" by a member of the Sheffield Univ Philo Dept):

frege-analytic

has to do with 'substitution' of synonym for synonym.

Examples

(x) Bx --> not Mx
(no bachelor is married, example (c) Carnap)

(x) Rx --> Blx
(ravens are black)

or as I prefer

(x) Px --> Kx (pirots karulise elatically).

----

For Carnap, rather, it's via 'implicit definitions'. This relates notably to the definition of the 'logical' particles (i.e. the non-descriptive ones, as he has them) in, say, "Pirots karulise elatically":

ALL pirots karulise elatically
A is a pirot
______
A karulises elatically

In Boghossian's reconstruction:

(A) -- argument above is VALID.
Therefore, "C" (where "C" stands for logical constant, (x) in our case) means what it means. (For (A) would NOT be valid if "C" meant other).

-- Defining "all" (or "(x)", for the choice of symbol is immaterial here) like that is _implicitly_ defining it. Short for or of 'stipulating'.

GRICE COMES IN.

Alas, his locus classicus is contro with Strawson, but surely we can trace Grice's own, versus Strawsonianly shared, views on this.

--- Biblio should include
Grice "Prejudices and predilections of Paul Grice".
-- on the status of the analytic-synthetic distinction. What I call, "You've come a LONG way, Grice", from the Paradigm-Case-Argument defense of 1956.

Grice, Retrospective Epilogue in WoW. I may append some relevant quotes from WoW later.

Cheers.