Johnson's Postulates of Conversation

By J. L. Speranza
for the Grice Club, etc.


You wouldn't know who I'm talking of, right?

Well, this is Lakoff and Johnson.

Starting to sound more familiar?

What if I say,

Lakoff & Johnson, Conversational postulates?

Piece of cake!

But the question remains. Were Johnson and Lakoff seriously using 'postulate' alla Carnap ("Meaning Postulate")?

What I _can_ say is 5 minutes after finishing reading Johnson/Lakoff (in Cole/Morgan but originally a mimeo, I think) I realised it was Not what Grice was meaning or thinking about.

A meaning postulate is, for Carnap, a pretty abstract thing. It involves strict implication, or something.

A 'maxim' is NOT such a thing -- unless in a very strict rational deconstruction of the whole entitiy.

Yet Lakoff and Johnson want us to see the naturally occurring maxims as abstract meaning postulates.

Problems:

i. If the notion of entailment or strict implication is necessary for an understanding of the artificiality of some of the meaning postulates, how can we think that something as natural as a 'converational maxim' will require such level of abstractedness and artifciality?

ii. Other.

Etc.