Grice, "Be relevant"

Grice wrote in WoW, ii. And a cottage industry has flourished out of it!

But what did Grice mean? And were Wilson and Sperber along the right track in 'misinterpreting' Grice? Thus think D. Wedgewood, if I understood his point alright in his PhD. He claims that Sperber and Wilson's use of the same terms as Grice will mislead the reader. Thinking that they are talking about the same things, when they are not. It is in this 'jocular' sense that I speak of 'mis-interpretation'.

For consider a post I introduced myself elsewhere with. It concerns the only mention, in print, as it were, of Wilson and Sperber by Grice. In WoW, p. 372, he writes:

"The suggested [conversational] maxims do not SEEM to have the degree of mutual independence of one another which the suggested layout SEEMS to require. To judge whether I have been undersupplied or oversupplied with information SEEMS to require that I should be aware of the identity of the topic to which the information in question is supposed to RELATE; only after the identification of A FOCUS OF RELEVANCE can such as assessment be made; the force of this consideration SEEMS to be _blunted_ by writers like Wilson and Sperber who SEEM to be disposed to sever the notion of relevance from the specifications of some particular direction of relevance"

I have analysed this elsewhere. But it amuses me that he would use "like". Surely he means "Writers Wilson and Sperber", not merely _like_ them!

Cheers,

JL