Grice on 'helpfulness'

-- by JLS
----- for the GC

----- WE HAVE SEEN THAT, in spite (isn't 'spite' always too strong a word?) of what critics have pointed out, Grice was never wedded to either

i. the idea of cooperativeness.
ii. the categories being four: Quantitaet, Qualitaet, Relation, Modus (apres Kant)

Re: (i) -- surely he is forceful (if that's the word), e.g. "Farewell to all that", this forum, that there's more to rationality (or efficiency) than being co-operative, and cooperative does NOT amount to or equal 'rational': it's neither a necessary not a sufficient condition: it is rather, on occasion, a datum (or given).

---

Re: (i). Grice had lectured, perhaps boringly, or drearily, for him, but that's the longitudinal history of philosophy for some committed dons, on 'categories' -- Aristotle and Kant being his required readings for his students. And as Chapman sums it up, the idea of Aristotle's categories no. 2, 3, 4, and 5 -- he had to COIN 'posotes' and 'poiotes' (quantity and quality) for that purpose but in the inverse order -- became Kant's "Table of Categories" which Grice is following in the Kemp-Smith translation.

---

In his Oxford lectures for 1964, which he charmingly kept and which OED3 SHOULD take note of if they are looking (as perhaps they aren't -- knowing them -- I love them!) for the earliest quote of 'implicature', Grice wrote of a dual-model instead -- not the quaternion --, one which is still not openly monotheistic -- with efficiency or P.E.R.E. -- principle of economy of rational effort -- i.e. principle of efficiency -- on top. This is a dual model between egoism and altruism -- the good conversationalist is the one which balances between self-love and benevolence.

Chapman notes: "A number of the lectures (by Grice) include discussion of the
types of behaviour people in general exhibit, and therefore
the types of expectations"

Cfr. S. R. Bayne, elsewhere, on owings, and cfr. the etymology of 'ought', as 'owed'.

"they might bring to a venture such as a conversation".
"Grice suggests that people in general both exhibit
and EXPECT a certain degree of helpfulness"

-- alla Rosenschein, epistemic/boulomaic:

If A cognizes that B wills p, then A wills p.

"from OTHERS"

-- reciprocal vs. reflexive, etc. i.e. at least from your co-conversationalist partner or himself if viewed in such a position (the speaker who lies is basically letting himself down, and ditto the one who is not clear, etc.).

"usually on the understanding that such
helpfulness does NOT get in the way of
particular goals"

"and does not involve undue effort"

--- cfr. Hobbes on, as Bayne stresses, self-love, or strictly, 'egoism', perhaps, if less euphonic.

"It two people, even complete strangers,
are going through a gate, the expectation is
taht the FIRST ONE through will hold the
gate open, or at least leave it open, for the
second. The expectation is such that to
do OTHERWISE without particular reason
would be interpreted as RUDE."

Cfr. later his thoughts on 'be polite'. WoW:ii as a maxim which is still _not_ 'conversational' and thus fails to generate, in his self-labelled 'artificial' favoured use, a conversational implicatum.

"The type of helpfulness exhibited and
expected in conversation is more specific
because of a particular, although not a
unique feature of conversation."

-- Note his emphasis on 'necessary' and 'sufficient' with which, as an analytic philosopher, he was wedded to.

"It is a COLLABORATIVE venture between
the participants".

"There is a SHARED aim"

Grice wonders. His words,

Does

"helpfulness in something
WE ARE DOING TOGETHER"

equate to

'cooperation'?

"He seems to have decided that it does: by the later lectures
in the series, 'the principle of conversational helpfulness'
has been rebranded the expectation of 'cooperation'".

"During the Oxford lectures, Grice develops his
account of the precise nature of this cooperation. It can
be seen as governed by certain

regularities,

or

principles,

detailing expected behaviour. The term 'maxim' to describe
these regularities appears relatively late in the lectures."

Of course there is a lot one can discourse on the distinction between a regularity and a principle, and the meta-levels it involves. Does a pirot, say, need to recognise a pattern of behaviour, or an 'established' procedure, as Grice prefers, AS 'cognised' for it to become a 'principle'?

"Grice's INITIAL choices of terms are 'objectives' and
'desiderata'."

He was particularly fond of the latter.

"He was interested in detailing the desirable forms of
behaviour for the purpose of achieving a joint goal of
the conversation."

As opposed to the 'own-goal' -- which ARE possible, even in cricket.

"Initially, Grice posits

TWO

such desiderata. Those relating to candour on the one hand
and clarity on the other."

DESIDERATUM OF CANDOUR:

"The desideratum of candour contains his general principle of
making the strongest possible statement and, as a limiting
factor on this, the suggestion that speakers should try not
to mislead"

Cfr. the 'scale':



in terms of entailment (O'Hair) as developed in the earlier Grice 1961 in the section II which he omitted from WoW on grounds that it repeated the WoW:ii -- but that any serious student of Grice Studies should be (even if slighty? :)) familiar, e.g. via S. R. Bayne's excellent online reprint in his History of Analytic Philosophy website -- the excellent fascimile from the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society.

cfr. our

"We are brothers"

-- but not mutual. (And example actually drawing from Strawson's vintage 1952. "We are friends but not to each other" -- the problem of 'conjunction', THIS BLOG.

"We are married to each other". "You _are_ a boor".

----

DESIDERATUM OF CLARITY.

"The desideratum of clarity concerns the manner of expression"

His later reference to Modus as Used by Kant as one of the four categories.

"for any conversational contribution."

"It includes the

IMPORTANT

expectations of relevance to understanding and also insists
that the main import of an utterance be clear an explicit."

WEIGHING:

"These two factors are constantly to be

WEIGHED

against two

FUNDAMENTAL and SOMETIMES COMPETING

demands".

PRINCIPLE OF BENEVOLENCE, or Altruism -- "Benevolent Principle" (cfr. "Cooperative Principle" of later vintage).

(cfr. Grice's ironic, "You are such an egoist: always giving yourself the satisfaction of doing things for other people!" WoW: 54 -- and J. Baker, "Do one's motives have be poor?", in PGRICE)


"Contributions to a conversation are aimed towards
the agreed current purposes by the

PRINCIPLE

of

Conversational Benevolence."

Principle of Conversational Self-Love -- or "Egoist principle" -- cfr. "Cooperative Principle", Altruist Principle, above.

"The principle of CONVERSATIONAL SELF-LOVE
ensures the assumption on the part of both
participants that neither will go to
unnecessary trouble in framing their contribution".

This has been a topic of interest to no end.

In my "Conversational Immanuel" I tried different ways of making
sense -- it is very easy to do so -- of Grice's distinctions that
go over the head of some linguists I know! Reasonable versus
rational for example. A Rawlsian distinction of sorts.

But 'rational' is, while flat and the source for 'reasonable', too weak (where 'too' is the analog qualifier per excellence or quintessentially. We need 'reasonable'. So, what sort of reasonableness is that which results from this
harmonious, we hope, clash of self-love and benevolence?

Grice tried, wittily, to extend the purposes of
conversation to involve

MUTUALLY INFLUENCING EACH OTHER

-- a reciprocal (WoW, ii). And, then, as if this were not enough, he posits, qua 'God' or genitor in his ideal-observer's theory, a mythical reconstruction
of this in his "Meaning Revisited" which he contributed
to this symposium organised by N. Smith on Mutual
knowledge.

But issues remains, we hope.