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The pragmatic circle

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Abstract

Classical Gricean pragmatics is usually conceived as dealing with far-side pragmatics, aimed at computing implicatures. It involves reasoning about why what was said, was said. Near-side pragmatics, on the other hand, is pragmatics in the service of determining, together with the semantical properties of the words used, what was said. But this raises the specter of ‘the pragmatic circle.’ If Gricean pragmatics seeks explanations for why someone said what they did, how can there be Gricean pragmatics on the near-side? Gricean reasoning seems to require what is said to get started. But then if Gricean reasoning is needed to get to what is said, we have a circle.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. ILCLI, The University of the Basque Country, Villa Asuncion Jose Elosegi 275, 20015, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain

    Kepa Korta

  2. Department of Philosophy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-2155, USA

    John Perry

Authors
  1. Kepa Korta
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  2. John Perry
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Correspondence to Kepa Korta.

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Korta, K., Perry, J. The pragmatic circle. Synthese 165, 347–357 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9188-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9188-3

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