[Milton-L] Fish and Milton

[Harold Skulsky]

QUESTION: As Vladimir chooses between two alternative interpretations
of Estragon's] utterance, A and B, he rejects B on the basis that "The
Gogo I knew couldn't have meant that." Did Estragon then succeed in
"getting it [the meaning A] said"? Was Didi wrong to invoke the context
of Gogo's normal thought and behavior, or could such contexts be
considered part of the "system of communication"?


ANSWER: Vladimir's experience has taught him that in a given kind of
situation S Estragon is incapable of forming an intention to communicate
B by uttering (otherwise ambiguous) expression E. As luck would have it,
Estragon's last words to Vladimir are E — uttered (of all things) in
situation S. Two variants of the question suggest themselves:

(1) "Is Vladimir wrong to invoke his observation of Gogo's normal
thought and behavior to arrive at an inductive inference about what
Estragon meant to say?"  

(2) "Is Vladimir wrong to claim that his inference in (1) gives him
access to the meaning of Estragon's utterance of E in the system of
communication C shared by Estragon and Vladimir?"

The answer to (1) is clearly no. If he has been a scrupulous observer,
his reasoning is impeccable.

The answer to (2) is yes. 

First of all, A is ruled out by C as a contextual meaning of S only if
the following is common knowledge in the C community:

"In a given kind of situation S, Estragon is incapable of forming an
intention to communicate A by uttering E." 

Maybe this IS common knowledge, and maybe it isn't. But if (1) is
correct, Vladimir is not relying on C at all, but doing an end run
around it. On presupposition (1), Vladimir is wrong to claim that he is
doing semantics when he is clearly only doing psychology.

Or so I think as of the current moment.