RT list: A Dictionary of Grice

maxim, and implicature
-- and the constitution of a decalogue
 
In a message dated 12/2/2009 5:57:45 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
stavros.assimakopoulos@googlemail.com writes:

I do recall Grice mentioning other maxims too, which he never got round to
 clarifying... Surprisingly enough politeness was among them! Excuse my
ignorance and keep doing your thing. I am sure some people on here DO enjoy it
 (not clashing with sure now, is it?)
 
Good point. Obviously YOUR implicature being that someone has not been too
polite over here! :). Anyway, Yes, you do recall correctly. Grice does
mention "other maxims" "which he never got round to clarifying" is perhaps too
much on your editorial side -- and yes, 'be polite' was among them.
 
Let's revise the exact passage -- as I lie by the Swimming-Pool on a sunny
day:
 
It's on p. 28 of WoW:
 
   "There are, OF COURSE [literally, off the course -- slightly
    rude on Grice's part], ALL SORTS of other maxims
        [ii] aesthetic
        [iii] social or
        [iii] moral
     such as 'Be polite', and these may also generate NONCONVENTIONAL
     [but not conversational as per Grice's term of art]
     implicatures. [But my favoured [i]] conversational maxims
     [ONLY] are connecgted with the particular purposes [constitutive
goals]
     that [conversation] is adapted [evolutionarily, to please Sperber] to
     serve [surely we don't just go to a meeting for the sake of being
polite]."
 
Now, what I call Maxim 10 falls within the 'conversational maxims':
 
CAT.
QUANTITAS
 
Maxim 1 make your move as informative as required for goal G
Maxim 2 do not make your move MORE informative than required
 
QUALITAS
 
Maxim 3 do not say what you believe to be factually unsatisfactory
Maxim 4 do not say what Gettier would not say (that for which you lack
adeq. ev.)
 
RELATIO
Maxim 5 be relevant
 
MODUS
Maxim 6 avoid obscurity of expression
Maxim 7 avoid ambiguity
Maxim 8 be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity, sic)
Maxim 9 be orderly
 
Maxim 10
"I would be inclined to suggest that we add to the maxims of Manner
which I originally propounded some [other] maxim [making this the
decalogue from good ole Moses, almost] which would be, as it
SHOULD be, vague: 'Frame whatever you say in the form
most suitable for any reply that would be regarded as appropriate', or
'Facilitate in your form of expression the appropriate reply'.
 
--- WoW, 273
 
The rather convoluted formulation of the Maxim 10 shows that Grice was
really into philosophical discourse, for he is into 'vacuous' referential terms
 and a treatment that, as he essayed in "Vacuous Names" would avoid that
monstrosity he saw in Strawson's truth-value gaps!
 
---- Now, the '10 coms" metaphor has a Gricean appeal to it:
 
When he compiles the "Immanuel" -- in "Method in philosophical psychology",
 repr. in Conception of Value -- he suggests that there may be specific
immanuels for various areas of rational activity. One such, I suggested in my
paper ed. by M. J. Palacios, "The Conversational Immanuel", as title of my
paper went. And I say this may have Gricean appeal. Among Grice's
unpublications we find:

"perhaps Moses brought other 'objectives' from
    Sinai, besides 10 comms"
 
(cited by Chapman, p. 155). He did! and we should thank Grice for
gricefully translating them onto plain English for all us to abide by!
 
So, there is indeed a strong conversational tone in all that Grice writes
(and that's why I love him, among other things). So he is stipulating a use
of 'maxim' ("conversational maxim") as being especially relevant to a type
of 'implicature' ("conversational" qua species of the genus
non-conventional). I can see Robin Talmach objecting: "I don't care if Grice would NOT
call the implicatures generated by 'be polite' 'conversational' -- an
implicature by any other name, a maxim by any other name. But _names_ are
important. We's not talking roses here, or smelling them! (are we?)
 
The header echoes a favourite title in my Swimming-Pool Library: A
dictionary of Borges. Of course, the relevant volume under review would have, in a
NON-prescriptive way, entries like 'pirot', 'immanuel' and 'what not'.
 
Cheers,
 
J. L. Speranza
       
Received on Wed Dec 2 21:27:09 2009