Schoolfield on Hintikka on Grice: Playing the Conversational Game

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

My PhD dissertation, for good or bad (for good, as it happens) follows some uses by Grice of things like "conversational game", "rules of the game" "conversational move", and so on.

This is from M. Schoolfield's MSc thesis availabe online at:

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

It is a very tidy thing, and so it can be quoted vis a vis specific authors. I have referred to it before in this club vis a vis Kramer's point about efficiency, Grice's principle of economy of rational effort, and Kasher. Here is Schoolfield's good take on Hinikka -- which relates to Doctorow's remarks on game theory that he recently made in the club.

Schoolfied starts by pointing to the Hintikka piece in PGRICE (ed. Grandy/Richards):

"In this paper Hintikka complements Grice
on a body of work; however, he singles out “Logic
and Conversation” to criticize. Hintikka
believes that the Gricean maxims “are not, and
cannot be, the rock bottom of a
satisfactory analysis of the logic of conversation” (Hintikka 1986, 273)."

-- because he (Hintikka) is a Finn, and the Finns have a great and long tradition in logic, vonWright, etc. and so -- there is something in Grice that escaped Grice. (I write in jest).

Schoolfield goes on:

"One of the reasons Hintikka thinks this, is
his belief that, “when the time comes
to conceptualize the results of… discourse-theoretical
observations Grice often seems to retreat back
to formulations that pertain to utterances
taken one by one rather than to the
interplay of different
utterances in discourse” (Hintikka 1986, 259)."

The blame is on Hintikka for not RUNNING to the Grice Collection at Bancroft. It's all about an abstract model, and technically, it was always meant to be a model with at least TWO moves in a game.

Schoolfield goes on:

"Hintikka is interested in a “different, more
flexible framework in which the dynamics of discourse
are spelt out more explicitly” (Hintikka 1986, 259). First-order
predicate logic is clearly not the logic of dialogue. This point, as
Hintikka wants to explore, leads to a fundamental
difference between propositions and the utterances
of dialogue. The new strategy for understanding conversation
Hintikka wants to employ is explained as follows: Grice says
that one of his ‘avowed aims is to see talking as
a special case or variety of purposive, indeed
rational, behavior’ [Grice 1989, 28]. If so, the
bag of conceptual tools one can profitably
use in studying conversational logic
should be a special case, or variety, of the conceptual tools
one uses in studying the rationality of human behaviour in general. One such tool is game theory. (Hintikka 1986, 262).

--- so beware the monster: first collocation of 'game theory' in the quote up there.

Schoolfied goes on:

"Thus, Hintikka argues that the framework for studying dialogue needs to be shifted from formal logic to game theory. Game theory is geared toward better understanding which appropriate strategies one ought to use in given situations, or games."

--- point made by others such as Carlson in Dialogue Games -- and more recently, N. E. Allott in "Game theory and communication" (the latter explicitly on Grice).

Shoolfield goes on:

"Hintikka then sketches a simple schema in which conversations
can be viewed game-theoretically. He writes, “Two
speakers make ‘moves’ alternately. There are four different kinds of moves: (a) Assertoric moves. (b) Interrogative moves. (c) Deductive moves. (d) Definitory moves” (Hintikka 1986, 262). Hintikka then explains how each of these steps work."

"First, a “player” must make an assertoric move, in which he or she “puts forward a new proposition (a new ‘thesis’)” (Hintikka 1986, 262)."

"An interrogative move is a questioning move, the answer (if one can be given) to which “is then added to the list of the answerer’s theses” (Hintikka 1986, 262)."

"The deductive moves are pretty straightforward, it is comprised of “a logical conclusion from the totality of his/her opponent’s theses,” and previous conclusions obtained by the same means (Hintikka 1986, 263)."

"Finally, definitory moves are when one “introduces a new non-logical symbol by and appropriate explicit definition” (Hintikka 1986, 263). These four moves are used to prove all the players’ theses, but according to Hintikka the goals can be varied."

---- Alas, when one rescues the use of 'conversational move' in Grice one sees a vagueness and charm in Grice's approach that is lacking in some of their Finnish rewrites! (But I like a Finn!).

Schoolfied goes on:

"Hintikka believes that the Gricean maxims can be incorporated
into his model. In referring to maxim Q2, Hintikka notes, while
Grice remarks that one ought not violate Q2 for fear of confusing the hearer, for Hintikka there “is nevertheless operative,… in ordinary discourse, a different pressure against extra information. Everything a player of my dialogical games says can be used against him (or her) by the opponent” (Hintikka 1986, 270)."

"Here, the player will want his discourse to be as weak as possible; thus, requiring him to prove less by the rules of the game. This is a fundamentally different reason to act in accordance with the Q2-maxim; however the end result is the same.
The same result will be found regarding the maxims of quality, QL1, and QL2."

"Because one only gets a payoff by proving the maximum amount of statements in the dialogue, one will only want to propose things that he or she may be able to show to be true. Surprisingly, QL1 is also satisfied by this game. Hintikka writes, “if my opponent gives true answers to my question, if the opponent is fairly well-informed, and if the effects of my own answers can be discounted, then it is ceteris paribus in my own best interest to put forward true theses” (Hintikka 1986, 272)."

"Manner, unlike quantity, quality, and relevance, is not of interest to Hintikka. He states that it “is different in kind from the first three” (Hintikka 1986, 274). This should become apparent, as arguments to this affect will be made later. Relevance, however, must be addressed and is actually reworded to state that it is a move within the rules to increase one’s pay-off."

"This Hintikka must explain; he states, “For instead of the relevance of the several utterances in a dialogue I could collectively speak of the coherence of the dialogue” (Hintikka 1986, 273)."

"Hintikka refers to a Sherlock Holmes story in which Holmes solves a mystery about a prize race horse by asking a shepherd an apparently irrelevant question about the recent status of his sheep (Hintikka 1986, 275). However, this question, as is often the case with the solutions to intricate puzzles, was the crucial link between a series of facts that ultimately achieved the goal of solving this mystery."

"From all this, one can see that Hintikka has crafted a formal game that models the Gricean maxims. This game, like Kasher’s work, does not require a Cooperative Principle; and, in fact, becomes a competition between the players of the game."

I agree with Shoolfield on this:

"Still, there are CLEARLY some problematic results of this account."

"For example, intuitions of conversation stray far from this schema. Conversations are certainly not games in which one must prove, or at least hope to prove, all the propositions that one puts forward."

--- and there are other problematic results or problematic presuppositions, even.

"Still, the idea of conversation as a goal oriented game, with pay-offs and costs, is certainly an idea which has not been explored, and may have some benefits."

---

"The primary significance of these two works, however, is their alternative approach to the theory of conversation, which is based on rationality theory."

---- And so on.