Martinich and Grice

-- by JLS
---- for the GC

ALOSIUS Martinich was born in Russia and teaches philosophy in Texas. One good thing, among other excellent others, is that he teaches Grice.

This is from Schoolfield's MSc thesis online at -- chapter on "Martinich on Grice". Myself, I have dedicated a few pages to Martinich elsewhere, and we have corresponded on stuff. He is the one to have allowed for the polemic to go when Max Black (another Russian-born philosopher) criticised Grice, and with a straight face too! (Grice's best friend, George Myro, was another Russian born).

Anyway, this is Schoolfield:

www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/.../1/Grice%20paper%20Final%20Draft.doc

"One Neo-Gricean is A. P. Martinich. His reformulation of Grice’s maxims is probably the least different of all the theories."

"In fact, Martinich has only two major criticisms to the theory as presented by Grice. The first change Martinich proposes is to the maxims of quality. Martinich argues that they are faulty because they are too rigid:"

"Both are defective because too [sic] narrow. Cast as they are in terms of “truth”, “falsity” and “evidence”, they apply only to those speech acts that attempt to say how the world is, that is, to statements, assertions and the like. They suffer from the typical philosophical disease of fixating on serious factual statements when people often do other things with language. (Martinich 1980, 219)
He suggests, instead, a maxim that is “broad enough to cover the entire spectrum of speech acts” (Martinich 1980, 219)."

"He settles on his authenticity supermaxim B′:
B′. Be authentic. That is, do not knowingly participate in a speech act for which the conditions for its successful and non-defective performance are not satisfied. (Martinich 1980, 220)"

"This rewording of the Quality Maxim certainly accounts for speech acts, and there is something to this speech act adjustment; however, it initially strikes one as odd that this speech-act-sensitive language is needed. It seems that most speech acts, at least the ones that Martinich lists, such as promising, forgiving, and apologizing all entail non-natural meanings."

"Grice clearly had this in mind when he proposed his maxims, so this dramatic change may be unnecessary to the theory. For those who are particular about speak act theory it may be notable. Still, it is probably excessive to edit Grice’s principles in this way. Regardless, Martinich’s authenticity supermaxim is only one of the two alterations that he makes to Grice’s theory."

"The second maxim that Martinich modifies is the maxim of relation. He divides this maxim into two submaxims, unlike his modification to the QL-maxim. He calls the first of these two submaxims C1, which is, “Make your contribution one that moves the discussion towards its goal” (Martinich 1980, 220). This modification does address two of the major criticisms levied against Grice, those of Kasher and Hintikka. By addressing the goal-oriented nature of conversation, Martinich points to one of the major ways to improve the Gricean model."

"However, Martinich misses one of the main intuitions that Kasher brings up, that in order to address the goal-oriented nature of conversation, one cannot simply address aspects of Grice’s theory, because of its presumption of the Cooperative Principle as its foundation. The only way in which this submaxim could stand without conflicting with the Cooperative Principle is if all conversational goals were cooperative; however, this is simply not the case."

"Thus, unfortunately, this submaxim cannot even be addressed without an entire overhaul of the Gricean system."

"Martinich refers to the second of the two submaxims of relation as C2. This maxim is as follows: “Express yourself in terms that will allow your hearer to tie your contribution into the conversational context” (Martinich 1980, 221). This brings light onto another alternative to Gricean theory, which is that of Relevance Theory. Without the addition of C1, however, this submaxim does not seem significantly clear enough to warrant this rewording. Context is important; however, without a general theory of context, as Martinich only provides a vague quote by Strawson to found his theory, the difference between contributions being relevant and being able to be tied into a conversational context cannot be differentiated (Martinich 1980, 221-222)."

"Thus, Martinich’s reformulations ultimately fail, but they reiterate the criticisms presented in Hintikka and Kasher."

Martinich has done much to circulate Grice's ideas. His influential compilation in the philosophy of language contains Grice's "Logic and Conversation" for which he provides a useful editorial about systematics of maxim flouting. And he has studied Grice's essay from a 'deconstructivist' perspective, i.e. in terms of the style of Grice in presenting one thing and perhaps talking about another.

---- Part of the problem there is editorial. As Martinich notes: the essay, by Grice, starts with the mention of a 'commonplace in philosophical logic' but not a second word about it is mentioned in the essay. The explanation: the coming lectures will be ALL about that. It wasn't Grice's fault that someone had cajoled him onto publishing ONE singular lecture like that.