Grice and Kramer (vs. Smith) on maximal cooperativeness

by J. L. Speranza
-- for the Grice Club.

KRAMER ("Grice ex post facto, ex ante facto", comment, this blog) notes brilliantly against H. Smith (of the Harvard Law School) and his simplistic interpretation of common-or-garden Grice (for lawyers) -- don't you hate it when someone from a discipine quotes, very superficially, someone from ANOTHER discipline just to show off? Oddly, Grice is being so naif in his remarks that they hardly count as 'philosophical'. They are commonsensical remarks that he AIMS to put to philosophical use, some day.

Kramer takes issue with Smith's sordid distinction between cooperative (or 'conversational') and 'legal'!

It's like when this Argentine starlet (Katya Alemann) said that 'marriage is an affront to love: if I marry you it is because I distrust your love' -- or something.

Kramer notes:

"If A asks B to build him a house for
a price, the most helpful thing that
B can do, I think, is to offer A a fully
explicit contract outlining precisely"

FIRSt:

"what will be done,"

SECOND:

"by when,"

THIRD:

"with what guarantees,"

FOURTH:

"for what price,"

and

FIFTH:

"paid on what terms."


-- Kramer comments:

"The degree of explicitness in the response is not "uncooperative"; rather it is contextually calibrated to be maximally helpful."

Excellent.

Perhaps the problem is that Grice should ultimately care just about 'assertion' and the like, e.g. 'directive', in their most general terms.

I say "p".

I state that p. Etc.

--- Surely the itemisation of things (or 'items') is not something that follows ordinarily in an order or other (incidentally -- when we say 'ordinary' language, what ORDER are we implicating? I know the answer, but I still wonder -- cfr. extra-ordinary).

Kramer:

"If A asks B to build him a house for
a price,"

-- i.e. this seems like a SPECIFIC speech act. Hardly your common or garden assertion ("I state that p") or directive ("I direct you to p" -- or something). The more specific the speech act, the more specific the 'felicity' conditions, as it were:


FIRST:

"what will be done,"

"I want you to build me a villa, Tuscan style".

SECOND:

"by when,"

"by the midnight of February 16, 2012"

THIRD:

"with what guarantees,"

My grandmother?

FOURTH:

"for what price,"

in Euros? at what rate?

and

FIFTH:

"paid on what terms."

Four installment, one (25%) in advance.

----

But if I say,

"It is raining".

I Kant hardly be asked to be so explicit. Hence the impliciture, as it were.

-----

WHY GRICE CARED ABOUT THESE.

i. His own personal drama with pillar boxes being red and seeming red.

----- A: That pillar box seems red.

"unhelpful" or uncooperative if A sees it red.

ii. His conversational drama with Strawson:

----- A: if p, q
-- B: But there is no reason for q to follow from p.
-- A: I never SAID there was
--------- (defense of 'if' as the 'horseshoe' of logic).

Etc.

-----

Sometimes it's never clear what conversational context Grice is bringing and to what avail.

Conversations with philosophers -- especially at tutorials -- can be so CONFUSING that I would, for one, NOT rely on what Grice is 'patronising' about 'rational principles governing discourse' like that!

The whole point of being an Oxonian philosoper is to FLOUT those principles time and again -- and get away with it!