Grice on Meaning:

Do speakers’ intentions imbue words

with meanings?
 Descriptive vs. Foundational
semantics
Descriptive Semantics:
1. What exactly is the meaning of particular expressions: e.g.
‘Obama’, ‘black’, ‘president of the USA’, ‘all’, ‘some’, ‘the’?
2. How do these meanings combine to determine the meanings of
whole sentences (i.e. their truth conditions and cognitive
significance) ?

Foundational Semantics: What explains why ‘x’ has the meaning it

has? What makes it the case that a particular word or expression has a
specific meaning?
1. Are meanings determined by speakers’ criteria for identifying the
extension?
2. By external causal/historical relations to objects or properties?
3. By speakers’ intentions to communicate?
4. By social conventions?
 Grice on meaning

H.P. Grice
Oxford & Berkeley

• Paul Grice seeks to explain the meaning of words via

speakers’ intentions to communicate (1957).
• Later, he draws a sharp contrast between the literal
meaning of words & what they are used to imply (1975).
 Grice’s basic ideas
• Linguistic meaning ≠ natural information

• So what gives words their meanings?

• Reduction of meaning to psychology: Sentences have meaning in

virtue speakers’ intentions to use them to communicate specific
meanings to others.

• Speaker-meaning: Individual speakers can imbue words, signs,

actions with their own idiosyncratic meanings.

• Standard sentence meaning: A sentence’s standard meaning is

determined by the meanings normally associated with sentences
by groups of speakers.
 Two senses of ‘meaning’
Natural meaning: meaningN≈ fact x is evidence for fact y (a causal relation)
• ‘Those spots mean measles.’
• ‘Those spots mean nothing to me, but they meant measles to the doctor.’
• ‘The recent budget cuts means we’ll have a hard year.’
Non-Natural meaning: meaningNN ≈ an action is supposed to communicate a
proposition. (a normative relation)
• ‘Those 3 rings of the bell mean that the bus is full.’
• ‘“Smith can’t get along without his trouble & strife”, meant that Smith finds his
wife indispensible.’
• ‘That gesture means you should stop roiling the poltergeist.’
Contrast:
1. Misrepresentation: is possible with meaningNN, not with meaningN.
2. Agency: someone/something is doing the meaningNN, rather than a natural fact
meaning something.
3. Translation: some quoted proposition can give the meaningNN.
 What is MeaningNN?
NOT a simple causal disposition :
x meansNN y = x tends to produce attitude y, in virtue of
causal conditioning in use of sign (379)

Doesn’t distinguish:
1. MeaningN vs meaningNN: Putting on a cossie
meansNN one’s going swimming?
2. Literal meaning vs what can be inferred: ‘Jones plays
basketball’ meansNN ‘Jones is tall’?
3. Idiosyncratic meaning vs. standard meaning: ‘He’s
the very pineapple of politeness’ means that … he’s
a polite pineapple?
 Intention-based approach
Explanation: meaningNN is grounded in goal-directed
communication – trying to get someone to understand
something.

Grice aims to explain (381):

a) Speaker’s meaning: my waving to you.
• x meantNN something (on a given occasion)
• A meantNN something by x (on a given occasion)
b) Standard meaning : my using using the wave signal to you.
• x meansNN (timeless) something.
• A meansNN (timeless) something by x

Grice’s two-step strategy:

1. Appeal to an individual’s communicative intentions to
explain speaker’s meaning.
2. Then appeal to the majority of speakers’ meanings within a
group to explain standard meanings.
 First shots
1. ‘x meantNN that p’ is true iff: S intends x to produce a
belief that p in H. (381)
• S = speaker, x = utterance, H = hearer, p = belief content, iff = if & only if
• N.B. don’t pre-judge which items can count as utterances!

Problem: I can just leave evidence lying about.

– I leave B’s bloody handkerchief around to get A to conclude that B is the murderer.
– The handkerchief doesn’t meanNN that B committed the murder!

2. Add: S intends H to recognize S’s intention # 1.

Problem: I can deliberately & openly let someone know that p
without telling them that p.
– Herod presents Salome with John’s head on a platter ≠ telling Salome
that John is dead.
– Providing evidence involves meaningN, not meaningNN
– Evidence allows no misrepresentation, agential meaning, translation
 Recognizing communicative
intentions
PG: The key difference between openly offering
evidence vs telling is in recognizing speakers’ intention
to communicate that p.
Picture example: (383)
a) Showing Mr X a photo of Mrs X & MrY kissing.
b) Showing Mr X a drawing of Mrs X & MrY kissing.
The photo is just objective evidence.
With the drawing, what’s communicated depends crucially on your
intention to inform Mr X that p (Mrs X’s illicit act).

3. Add: meaningNN that p requires H to believe that p

because H recognizes S’s communicative intentions.
• Objection: MeaningNN can exploit natural signs: my deliberate frown
meansNN ‘I’m displeased’. But you could have known what it meantN
just by seeing the frown.
• Reply: when H recognizes intentional nature of frown x, then the
speaker’s intention is crucial to interpreting x’s meaningNN.
 Grice’s account
Speaker meaning:
S’s utterance of x meansNN that p iff S intends: (p. 385)
1. Attitude production: to produce in H a belief that p.
2. Overtness: to make H recognize S’s intention in 1.
3. Mechanism: to have the effect in 1 be caused by the recognition in 2.
– Showing drawing ‘your wife has been canoodling’ (S intends H’s belief)
– Intentionally frowning  ‘stop that!’ (S intends H’s action)
– Raised eyebrows  ‘Is that really true?’ (S intends H’s answer)
In short: ‘A meantNN something by x is (roughly) equivalent to ‘A intended the utterance
of x to produce some effect in an audience by means of the recognition of this intention’
(385)

Standard meaning:
x meansNN (timeless) that p iff:
• People (vague) m-intend to produce in hearers a belief that p.
 Needs an theory of regularities/conventions of use in a community.
 Standard public meanings
‘She’ll be right, mate’ meansNN (in Australian English) that
everything will be okay iff:
• Most people in Australia m-intend to produce in their
hearers a belief that everything will be okay when they say
this.

1. The more often we understand individuals’ use of x to speaker-

meaning this proposition, the easier it is for other speakers to
speaker-mean the same thing.
2. It becomes what you expect people to speaker-mean with this
sentence.
3. Once this expectation becomes mutually obvious to virtually
everyone in the community, it becomes rational for each individual
to conform to this expectation –i.e. to use this expression with that
speaker-meaning. (cf. David Lewis, ‘Convention’)
4. At that point, this becomes the standard conventional meaning of
that expression (even when an individual doesn’t speaker-mean
that proposition!).
 Worries
Speaker-meaning:
1. Do we really have Gricean communicative Intentions?
• Do we really have such complicated intentions?
• Are such intentions ever really satisfied?
2. Is the account too restrictive?
• Does it require too much for someone to mean something by their words?
3. Is the account too liberal?
• Does it include too much as part of the meaning of speakers’ words?

Standard public meaning:

1. How exactly are public meanings generated?
• Most sentences aren’t uttered often enough to become conventional.
2. Is the account general enough?
• Can it explain the meaning of every possible sentence?
3. Are speaker meanings really independent of public meanings?
• Can you really mean whatever you choose by a word?
• Don’t social standards affect your use of words?
 Initial worries about intentions
1. Do we really have such complicated
intentions?
• ‘I’ll be voting in Albert Park’:
• I intend that you form a belief that I’ll vote in Albert Park
because you recognize this very intention of mine.
• And I intend you form that belief because you take my
saying this is as a reason for your belief (not just because of
some brute cause). (cf discussion of ‘blushing’ p. 385)

2. Are such intentions ever really fulfilled?

– Do you ever reason your way to beliefs in the way
required by my intentions?
– If your understanding is automatic, is the Gricean
approach falsified?
 Is the account too restrictive?
The intended-belief requirement:
1. Soliloquies: talking out loud to yourself: you’re not
trying to get anyone to believe anything.
2. Exams: the teacher already believes the true answer.
3. Proofs: I want you to believe pythagorean theorem,
but not just because I’m telling you: I want to to
recognize the proof is valid for yourself!

Grice’s fix: I intend you to believe that I believe.

 Are there cases where you say something & you don’t
intend me to believe that you believe it?
 1. Communicative intentions
S’s utterance of x meansNN that p on this occasion iff S intends x:
1. to produce a belief that p in H.
2. to make H recognize intention in (1).
3. (1) occurs in virtue of (2).

Grice adds a further condition: to rule out deviant causation

• I intend that you blush whenever I grunt. And you do so!
• My grunt doesn’t mean ‘Blush now!’ because you’re not blushing in virtue of recognizing my
grunting gives you a reason to blush. (385)

4. (1) occurs in virtue of H’s recognizing that S’s intention is a reason to believe that p.

 Do we really have such complicated intentions?

 Do hearers really reason in these ways?
Tacit intentions:
• Not part of conscious deliberation
• But could be reconstructed afterwards as part of rational
justification
 Regress?
Speakers intend their m-intentions to be recognized:
(i) I intend that my pointing get you to believe that p &
(ii) I intend that you recognize that I have this intention (i)
(iii) I intend you believe p because of your recognition of my intention in (ii).
But what if I don’t intend that you to recognise my intention in (iii)?
S intends by a certain action to induce in A the belief that P; so he satisfies condition (i,). He arranges
convincing-looking "evidence" that p, in a place where A is bound to see it. He does this, knowing that A is
watching him at work, but knowing also that A does not know that S knows that A is watching him at
work. He realizes that A will not take the arranged ''evidence" as genuine or natural evidence that p, but
realizes, and indeed intends, that A will take his arranging of it as grounds for thinking that he, S, intends
to induce in A the belief that p. That is, he intends A to recognize his (i,) intention. So S satisfies condition
(i,). […] S, then, satisfies all Grice's conditions. But this is clearly not a case of attempted communication
in the sense which (I think it is fair to assume) Grice is seeking to elucidate. (Strawson, 1964, p 146-7)

But if we add a further intention, won’t we need to add another one to recognize this one too?
(iv) I intend that you recognize my intention (iii).
(v) I intend that you recognize my intention in (iv).
(vi) …

Schiffer’s solution (1972, 30ff): requires mutual knowledge of all the relevant intentions &
background info. No hidden agendas, everything is known.
 2. Too restrictive?
The intended-belief requirement (i) seems to rule out genuine cases
of speaker meaning:
1. Soliloquies: talking out loud to yourself: you’re not trying to get an
audience to believe anything.
2. Exams: the audience already believes the true answer.
3. Proofs: I want you to believe Pythagorean theorem, but not just
because I’m telling you: I want to to recognize the proof is valid for
yourself!
Fixes:
1. Allow counterfactual audiences (Grice 1969)
2. Allow the speaker to be their own audience (Schiffer 1972, 80)
3. Require only that the belief content be ‘activated’ in audience (Grice
1969)
4. Weaken the requirement: (Grice 1969)
• (i’) I intend you to believe that I believe that p.
 Worries
1. Communicative Intentions:
– Do we really have such complicated intentions?!
– Is there a circularity problem with self-referential content of intentions 2 & 3?

2. Is intended-belief requirement too restrictive?

– Soliloquies
– Exams
– Arguments

3. Is the account of speaker-meaning too liberal?

– Ziff: contempt
– Searle: ‘Kennst du das Land wo Zitronen blühen?’

4. Do standard public meanings constrain speaker meanings?

– Can you really mean whatever you choose by a word?
– Don’t social standards affect your use of words?

5. Can the meaning of whole sentences be explained of the parts?

 Reducing meaning
The standard meaning of words can be explained in terms of
the intentions of particular speakers in communication.
1. The basic notion is speakers’ communicative intentions.
2. Word meaning is a secondary notion.
 Cf. Strawson’s critique of Russell: sentences don’t have truth conditions by
themselves, speakers uses of sentences are what are true/false.

Alternative views:
– Locke: Maybe concepts are linked directly to words?