Is it possible to mean something (in the Gricean sense) by being silent? Surely yes: we have the pregnant pause, and silence can speak volumes. I could also make an arrangement with you whereby if I don’t speak at a certain time I am wishing to communicate to you that (say) I want to leave. But then meaning is possible without a speech act, without any kind of utterance. How then can speaker meaning be an action at all? Speech acts need not be acts! Could all communications be silent? If so, Gricean speaker meaning is not a type of action in its essence. Speaker meaning happens to consist of acts with us most of the time, but this is quite contingent. So-called speech act theory is not essentially about acts.

My interview about Prehension was broadcast yesterday from Michigan on NPR’s To the Best of Our Knowledge. My section of the hourlong show (called “Handwork”) was preceded by a section on the therapeutic value of knitting and followed by discussions of the delights of drawing and the manual typewriter. This was all good manual propaganda–spreading the hand meme to the culture at large. Today my essay “Memes, Dreams and Themes” ran in the NY Times as one of those Philosopher’s Stone columns. Oh, the comments! No comment. The hand is certainly a theme of Prehension but it needs to become a meme: it needs a jingle or catchphrase. Any ideas? I like the phrase “Grand Order of Gripparians” but it’s not too snappy is it. How about “handlib” or “handlove” or “handiology”?

I was recording a couple of interviews for NPR the other day, one on the hand and evolution, the other on mysterianism, and they asked me to do a short piece on an “outrageous idea”. I chose to speak about my opposition to laughter: I propose that it be banned. It is like the shrieking of children, an indecorous and annoying habit best avoided. All that sniggering and giggling and howling–so uncivilized. I’m all in favor of humor and amusement, and I even approve of smiling, but laughing is just so much inarticulate noise. I would like to put up notices saying “No public cachinnation!” Laughter has no part in the properly humorous life. This will go out on public radio in due course and I expect to see a steep drop in incidents of laughter across the nation.

I just spent the weekend in New York, mainly to attend the memorial service for Oliver Sacks at the New York Academy of Medicine. There were hundreds of guests, with music, speeches, and film of Oliver. I have been to quite a few memorial services but this one was particularly memorable. He was so unusual, so beyond the norm, that it is impossible to convey his presence without actually interacting with him, or at least seeing him on film. The way he fondled a piece of metal, his gentle enunciation, his shy warmth, his simmering humor–no one quite like him. We had been good friends for many years, and his fundamental decency always impressed me–also the size of his appetite. My only reservation about the service was that some people couldn’t contain the urge to clap, though it was at least subdued. Afterwards the warmth and good feeling in the room were palpable.