Grice [Adam Plesser]

I agree with Grice's claim that in some sense the meaning of statements is dependent upon certain rules governing conversations. As mentioned in class, responding to a friend wanting to be picked up at the airport by saying "I have plans" seems perfectly natural, but extremely difficult to make sense of without admitting Grice's claim. On the other hand, I worry that Grice may be pushing against Putnam's claim that meanings "just ain't in the head," which he argued persuasively. If Oscar1 and Oscar2 are talking and either of them mentions water, then a misfire occurs despite them both following the rules governing conversations. Therefore I feel that Grice ought not to stick so rigidly to his intention-based theory of meaning and rather he needs to make room for meanings as defined outside of one's head to take priority in certain instances. How to categorize these instances I am not at all sure, but Putnam convincingly showed that such instances at least exist.