Grice, H. P. (H. Paul)

Biographical Information

Herbert Paul Grice, born in 1913 in Birmingham, England, obtained his degree at Corpus Christi College in Oxford, where he returned to teach until 1967 after providing teaching services at a public school in Rossall. In 1967, H.P. Grice moved to California, becoming a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley where he remained until his death in 1988. His long list of contributions during his teaching career include the William James Lectures from 1967-1968, his publication of "Utterer's Meaning, Sentence-Meaning, and Word-Meaning," from 1968-1969, his Urbana lectures presented in 1970, "Logic and Conversation," published in 1975, Kant lectures delivered in 1978-1977, John Locke lectures presented in 1978-1979, and Carus lectures presented in 1983. Grice's publications and lectures are compilations of his extensive research performed in the philosophy of language, metaphysics, Aristotelian philosophy, philosophy of mind, and ethics. Grice is also attributed with coining the word "implicature" in 1968 to describe speakers, and for defining his own paradox known as "Grice's paradox," introduced in Grice's "Studies in the Way of Words," (1989) a volume of all his publications and writings.

From the guide to the H. Paul Grice papers, 1947-1989, bulk 1960-1989, (The Bancroft Library)