Combining Philosophers

Ideas for David S. Oderberg, Henry More and H. Paul Grice

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4 ideas

19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature
Grice's maxim of quantity says be sufficiently informative [Grice, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Grice's maxim of quantity says 'make your contributions as informative as required'.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2
     A reaction: Is the 'requirement' of informative for the speaker or for the listener? It is easy to image situations where, one way or the other, the two people don't agree about informativenss.
Grice's maxim of quality says do not assert what you believe to be false [Grice, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Grice's maxim of quality says one ought not to assert what one believes to be false.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2
     A reaction: The obvious exception is irony, where are truth is asserted, but the listener is supposed to spot that you are not really asserting it.
Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible [Grice, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Grice's maxim of manner requires one to be as brief as possible.
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Some Models for Implicature [1967]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.2
     A reaction: An alternative maxim of conversation is that there should not be long silences between contributions - which would probably result if the contributions are all curtly abbreviated.
Key conversational maxims are 'quality' (assert truth) and 'quantity' (leave nothing out) [Grice, by Read]
     Full Idea: Grice particularly identified two maxims as guiding conversation: the maxim of 'quality' (that one should assert only what one believes to be true and justified), and of 'quantity' (one should not assert less than one can).
     From: report of H. Paul Grice (Presupposition and Conversational Implicature [1977]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.3
     A reaction: I think it would be very foolish to boldly embrace the second maxim when talking to strangers. If white lies are occasionally acceptable, then what is the status of the first 'maxim'? Is it a moral maxim?