Доклад Рамазана Аюпова «Why is Frege not a Gricean?» на семинаре «Chá das 5» Университета Кампинаса

Keywords: Gottlob Frege, Paul Grice, semantics, pragmatics, conventional implicatures, presuppositions, colouring, sense, meaning

Abstract

In the year 2025, it marks the centenary of the demise of the classicist and founder of analytical philosophy, Gottlob Frege. One of the most pertinent themes for researchers of Frege is the question of the presence of pragmatic elements in his philosophy of language. This issue, on one hand, arose from the critique of Michael Dummett’s interpretation of Gottlob Frege [12]; on the other hand, it revolves around the neo-Gricean dispute between Lawrence Horn and Christopher Potts concerning the nature of conventional implicatures and presuppositions in linguistics.

Lawrence R. Horn, in his articles ([4], [5], [6]), analyses how Frege anticipated Grice’s understanding of conventional implicatures. Frege engaged in the analysis of meanings that do not affect the truth or falsity of a statement, which was later developed into Grice’s conception of implicatures. Horn discusses Frege’s views on the differences in meaning introduced by words such as although, but, and still, which add layers of meaning without altering the truth value of the sentence. Furthermore, Frege adhered to a strict interpretation of the term presupposition (V oraussetzung), limiting its application to proper names. Frege’s principal idea was that presuppositions are associated with potential truth-value gaps that arise when proper names fail to refer. This creates situations where a statement cannot be true or false.

Following Horn, Torsten Sander [10] examines how Frege’s ideas on presuppositions influenced subsequent philosophical and linguistic discussions, particularly concerning the distinction between presuppositions and conventional implicatures. In another work, Sander [11] begins with a discussion of universal statements in the context of Frege’s logic, highlighting how Frege used the concept of side-thoughts (N ebengedanken) to explain phenomena that appeared incompatible with classical predicate logic. Furthermore, Sander discusses terms such as colouring (F¨arbung) and illumination (Beleuchtung), which Frege used to describe the contribution of linguistic means, such as but (aber), to expressed thoughts. In yet another work, Sander [9] starts with a critique of two erroneous interpretations of Frege’s theory of colouring. Thus, Horn and Sander consider the claim of pragmatics in Frege’s philosophy of language to be valid because of Frege’s interpretation of conceptions such as presuppositions, colouring, and tone. On the other hand, a number of theorists, particularly Stephen Neale [7], Eva Picardi [8], and Joan Weiner [13], have critiqued the position that sees elements of pragmatics in Frege’s philosophy of language. Their stance can be characterized as strictly semantic (following Dummett [1]).

So, the purpose of my talk is to answer one key question: How justified are the arguments for the presence of pragmatics in Frege’s philosophy of language?

In my talk, based on Grice’s model of pragmatics, I will show why Frege [2] did not develop any pragmatic theory [3].
 

References

[1] Dummett, M. Frege: Philosophy of Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.

[2] Frege, G. Translations from the philosophical writings of Gottlob Frege. P. T. Geach and M. Black (eds). Oxford: Blackwell, 1980.

[3] Grice, H. P. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989.

[4] Horn, L. R. Toward a Fregean Pragmatics: Voraussetzung, Nebengedanke, Andeutung. In: E. Kecskes and L. Horn (eds), Explorations in Pragmatics. Berlin: de Gruyter, pages 39-69, 2007.

[5] Horn, L. R. On F-implicature: Myth-analysis and Rehabilitation. Retrieved January 31, 2025, from: https://web.eecs.umich.edu/rthomaso/lpw08/Horn LPW.pdf, 2008.

[6] Horn, L. R. I Love Me Some Datives: Expressive Meaning, Free Datives, and Fimplicature. In: D. Gutzmann and H. M. G¨artner (eds), Beyond Expressives: Explorations in Use-Conditional Meaning. Leiden: Brill, pages 151-199, 2013.

[7] Neale, S. Coloring and Composition. In: K. Murasugi and R. Stainton (eds), Philosophy and Linguistics. Boulder: Westview Press, pages 35-82, 1999.

[8] Picardi, E. On Sense, Tone and Accompanying Thoughts. In: R. E. Auxier and L. E. Hahn (eds), The Philosophy of Michael Dummett. Chicago: Open Court, pages 491-520, 2007.

[9] Sander, T. Two misconstruals of Frege’s theory of colouring. The Philosophical Quarterly, 69(275): 374-392, 2019.

[10] Sander, T. Understanding Frege’s notion of presupposition. Synthese, 199 (5-6): 12603-12624, 2021.

[11] Sander, T. Fregean side-thoughts. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 99 (3): 455-471, 2021.

[12] Sluga, H. D. Gottlob Frege. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

[13] Weiner, J. Taking Frege at His Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.