Paul Grice
British philosopher of language who founded implicature theory.
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He created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle, foundational concepts in pragmatics.[1]
Life and work
Grice received firsts in classical honours moderation and literae humaniores from Corpus Christi College, Oxford.[2] After a year teaching at a public school, he returned to Oxford and taught in various positions until 1967.[2] During the Second World War he served in the Royal Navy.[3] He gave the William James Lectures at Harvard in early 1967, which circulated widely in unauthorized manuscript form.[2]
His most influential contribution is his theory of implicature, which started in his 1961 article "The Causal Theory of Perception"[4] Grice's theory of meaning began with his 1957 paper "Meaning" and was elaborated in later papers.[2] After teaching at Oxford until 1967, Grice then relocated to the US to become a professor at the University of California, Berkeley; he remained on the faculty there past his official 1979 retirement and continued teaching until he died in 1988.[2] The 1989 volume Studies in the Way of Words served as Grice's valedictory publication, collecting numerous of his essays and papers.[1]
What the cited sources add
The Stanford Encyclopedia account notes that Grice's best-known published work during his lifetime was his joint paper with Peter Strawson defending the analytic/synthetic distinction.[2] Grice distinguished elements of language use due to meaning from those due to other aspects, in contrast to the slogan "meaning is use"[2] The Stanford entry states that Grice's maxims are precepts that rational participants in a Cooperative Communicative Situation would follow.[2] Grice's account of cooperative communication situations is spread through his work on implicature, meaning, and reasoning.[2]
The Stanford entry describes Grice's lifelong philosophical ambition as deepening understanding by reflecting on what is closest to us.[2] Some critics argue that Grice's maxims are not sufficiently worked out to explain many implicature phenomena.[2]
References
- Wikipedia, "Paul Grice" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grandy, "Paul Grice", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Grandy, "Paul Grice", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
- Wikipedia, "Paul Grice" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p431: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948; Grandy, "Paul Grice", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2017; Stainton, "Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers", A&C Black, 2005-01-01; Stainton, "Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers", A&C Black, 2005-01-01; "Merton College Register 1900–1964", Basil Blackwell, 1964, p. 271; "Philosophical Grounds of Rationality: Intentions, Categories, Ends", Clarendon Press, 1986, p. 48–9; "Merton College Register 1900–1964", Ba en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Paul Grice" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Grice 1989, chs.1–7. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Paul Grice (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Paul Grice (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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