HERBERT PAUL GRICE, "LOGIC AND CONVERSATION: THE OXFORD LECTURES ON 'IMPLICATURE'," predating the William James Lectures -- The principle of conversational self-love and the principle of conversational benevolence, BANC MSS 90/135c

Speranza

Grice's Oxford "Conversation" Lectures, 1966
Grice: Between Self-Love and Benevolence
 
As I was saying (somewhere), Grice uses "self-love", charmingly qualified  
with capitals, as "Conversatinal Self-Love", and, less charmingly,  
"Conversational Benevolence", in lectures advertised at Oxford, as "Logic and  
Conversation" that he gave, not at Harvard, but at Oxford in 1966 as "University  
Lecturer in Philosophy". 

The notes he kept and are now deposited in The Herbert Paul Grice Collection at the Bancroft  in UC/Berkeley, BANC MSS 90/135c. 

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. Bayne on owings
 

They might bring to a venture such as a conversation.

Grice indeed suggests that people in general both exhibit
and EXPECT a certain degree of helpfulness.
 
-- alla Rosenschein, epistemic/boulemaic:
 
If A cognizes that B wills p, A wills p.
 
-- from OTHERS
 
-- reciprocal vs. reflexive, etc.
 
usually on the understanding that such helpfulness does NOT get in the way of particular goals.

And also on the understanding that such helpfulness does not involve UNDUE effort.
 
--- cfr. Hobbes on, as Bayne stresses, self-love.

Grice provides a non-conversational analogue (much as he will in the later William James lectures):
 
If two people, even complete strangers, are going through a gate, the expectation is
that 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 VERY RUDE -- even by Oxford standards! 
 
The type of helpfulness exhibited and expected in conversation is slightly more specific (but still falling under the same canon of rationality), because of a particular, although not a unique feature of conversation.

Conversationn is, after all, 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'?

We hope he answered, "No!"
 
Grice seems to have decided that it does, though.

By the later Oxford lectures in the series on "Logic and conversation," where 'implicature' is introduced into the bargain, 'the principle of conversational helpfulness' has been re-branded the expectation of 'cooperation'".

During these Oxford lectures, Grice develops his account of the precise nature of this cooperation. 

This helpfulness or cooperation can be seen as governed by certain
 
        regularities,
 
or 
 
         principles,
 
detailing expected behaviour. 

The Kantian term of art 'maxim' (i.e. means-end procedure) to describe
these regularities appears relatively late in the lectures.

But better later than never, Kantotelians hold!
 
Grice's INITIAL choices of terms are the less theory-laden, and more Oxonian (being so liberal and pinko), 'objectives' and 
'desiderata'.
 
He is particularly fond of 'desideratum.'
 
Grice is interested in detailing the desirable forms of behaviour for the purpose of achieving a joint goal of the conversation."
 
Initially, Grice posits
 
       TWO
 
such desiderata. 

One relating to conversational candour on the one hand
and one relating to conversational clarity on the other.

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

Recall his motto, "Misleading, but true."
 
cfr. our
 
"We are brothers"
 
-- but not mutual.
 
"We are married to each other". "You _are_ a boor".

 
"The desideratum of conversational clarity concerns the manner of expression -- cfr. his later reference to Modus as used by Kant as one of the four  categories -- for any conversational contribution.
 
The desideratum of conversational clarity includes the
 
              IMPORTANT
 
expectations of relevance to understanding and also insists that the main import of an utterance be clear an explicit.
 
These two desiderata are constantly to be
 
      WEIGHED
 
against two
 
   FUNDAMENTAL and SOMETIMES COMPETING
 
demands.
 
Contributions to a conversation are aimed towards
the agreed current purposes by the
 
            PRINCIPLE
 
of
 
Conversational Benevolence.
 
On the other hand, the co-relative 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 Noh 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.

Rational is too weak. 

We need 'reasonable'. 

So, what sort
of reasonableness is that which results from this
harmonious, we hope, clash of the principles of conversational self-love and the principle of conversational benevolence?

Grice tries, wittily, to extend the purposes of
conversation to involve
 
   MUTUALLY INFLUENCING EACH OTHER

-- a reciprocal.
 
(WoW, ii). 

And there's 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.

The fact that 'implicature' was coined for his Oxonian tutees should be pretty important, too! (If you're an Oxonian, that is!)