Natural meaning and the foundations of human communication
a comparison between Marty and Grice
pp. 13-31
in: Giuliano Bacigalupo, Helene Leblanc (eds), Anton Marty and contemporary philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2019Abstract
Several authors have noted the proximity of Marty's and Grice's ideas. Both Marty and Grice distinguish natural meaning and the sort of meaning involved in human communication; and they both attempt to provide a characterization of human communication that does not essentially appeal to the conventional nature of its linguistic devices. In this contribution, I single out what I take to be a main difference between Marty and Grice. Marty views linguistic communication as continuous with natural meaning while Grice insists on their irreducible difference. I argue that Marty is better positioned than Grice to account for intermediate cases like Grice's Salome example, and that this can be done without (entirely) losing the benefits of Grice's reflexive analysis of communicative intentions.
