The specialized term implicature was coined by Paul Grice as a technical term in pragmatics for certain kinds of inferences that are drawn from statements without the additional meanings in logic and informal language use of implication.
Practical reason
"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is." -- Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut
In philosophy, practical reason is the application of reason to real-world decision-making (ie. deciding on a course of action). Contrast this with theoretical reason (often called speculative reason) which is concerned with absolute and universal truths. For example: deciding exactly how to build a telescope is practical reason, whereas deciding between two theories of light and optics is speculative reason.
In cognitive research, practical reason is the process of ignoring unproductive possibilities in favor of productive possibilities. It is considered a form of cognitive bias, because it is illogical. An example would be calling all hospitals to look for your missing child, but not checking morgues, as finding his corpse would be 'counter-productive.'
Presupposition
In linguistics, a presupposition is background belief, relating to an utterance, that:
· must be mutually known or assumed by the speaker and addressee for the utterance to be considered appropriate in context
· will generally remain a necessary assumption whether the utterance is placed in the form of an assertion, denial, or question, and
· can be associated with a specific lexical item or grammatical feature (presupposition trigger) in the utterance.
In pragmatics, a presupposition is an assumption about the world whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include:
· Do you want to do it again?
o Presupposition: You have done it already, at least once.
· My wife has arrived.
o Presupposition: The speaker has a wife.
Crucially, negation of an expression does not change its presuppositions: I want to do it again and I don't want to do it again both mean that the subject has done it already one or more times; My wife has arrived and My wife has not arrived both mean that the subject has a wife. In this respect, presupposition is distinguished from entailment and implication. For example, The president was assassinated entails that The president is dead, but if the expression is negated, the entailment is not necessarily true.
Negation of a sentence containing a presupposition
If presuppositions of a sentence are not consistent with the actual state of affairs, then one of two approaches can be taken. Given the sentences My wife has arrived and My wife has not arrived when one has no wife, then either:
1. Both the sentence and its negation are false; or
2. Strawsons approach: Both "my wife has arrived " and "my wife has not arrived " use a wrong presupposition (that there exists an object which can be described with the noun phrase my wife) and therefore can not be assigned truth values.
Russell tries to solve this dilemma with two interpretations of the negated sentence:
1. "There exists exactly one person, who is my wife and who has not arrived"
2. "There does not exist exactly one person, who is my wife and who has arrived."
For the first phrase, Russell would claim that it is false, whereas the second would be true according to him.
Other uses of the term
Critical discourse analysis identifies the ideological function of presuppositions, particularly in the concept of synthetic personalisation.
In epistemology, presuppositions relate to a belief system and are required for it to make sense. Presuppositions form our worldview. The first presupposition we all make is either "there is a god" or "there is no god." From this point, every circumstance and fact we analyze will be categorized to prove one or the other point. A Christian presupposes that there will be life after death. For this reason, he tempers his actions more toward charity and obedience to God.
Task: find out yourself what epistemology is.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Self-check questions:
- Define the term “sign”. What is the essence of a hot debate about the nature of signs?
- Why is indexicality sometimes seen as an alternative way to understanding reference?
- Explain the difference between indexical and referential meaning. Give examples.
- Define non-referential indexicality. Dwell on the levels of indexical meaning.
- Characterize linguistic variants that act to index sex and gender. Give examples.
- What is affective meaning? What examples of affective forms can you give?
- Define T-V distinction. Dwell on its history and usage.
- Give the definition to honorifics. Characterize modern English and Japanese honorifics. Compare them with Ukrainian ones.
- Who invented the term ‘implicature’?
- What are the differences between practical and theoretical reason?
- Which of the logical statements is the most complicated?
Inferences:
- From the information read above we can make an inference that there are three main logical interconnections that need to be distinguished while making the analysis of utterances: entailments, implicature and presupposition. The are (or are supposed to be) all predetermined by practical reason. These logical interconnections should be derived from any utterance by means of applying their relationship to each other and to the truth/false of the utterance.
