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LIT-1041: Logic and Conversation

2 min read

Properties3
StatusUnavailable — filed 2026-10-13 and read only in part: pp. 45–47, the Cooperative Principle and the maxims, from an excerpt on a Simon Fraser University course page (NOTE-734, Skimmed). The rest of the chapter, pp. 41–44 and 47–58, was not reachable from a lawful source: the other copies found are Scribd and PDF-aggregator uploads and a course-licensed reprint on a non-university site. The definition of conversational implicature, its tests and the worked examples are therefore not read here. It stays Unavailable until a full copy is supplied (ADR-041): the search for one is recorded, and only an excerpt was read. The third of the four works that CLAIM-221 and QUESTION-073 name as missing.
Tagspragmatics, philosophy-of-language, linguistics
Cited as “paper” byNOTE-734 — Grice — Logic and Conversation

Graph View

H. Paul Grice (1975), in Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, New York: Academic Press, pp. 41–58 — DOI-10.1163/9789004368811_003

Key takeaways

Read only at pp. 45–47 (NOTE-734).

  • The Cooperative Principle. “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.”
  • The maxims.
    • Quantity: as informative as required, and not more. Grice calls the second maxim “disputable”.
    • Quality: do not say what you believe false, or that for which you lack adequate evidence.
    • Relation: “Be relevant”, whose problems Grice hopes to take up “in a later work”.
    • Manner: “Be perspicuous”: avoid obscurity and ambiguity, be brief, be orderly.
  • Other maxims. “Aesthetic, social, or moral” maxims such as “Be polite” may also generate nonconventional implicatures. The scheme is stated for “a maximally effective exchange of information”, which Grice calls “too narrow”.
  • Not read here. The separation of what is said from what is implicated (pp. 41–45), the definition of conversational implicature, its calculability and cancellability, and the examples of flouting (pp. 47–58). Known here only from their reception, in LIT-816 and LIT-821.

Standing in the record

Filed on 2026-10-13 at the owner’s request, as one of the four works of the intention-based line that CLAIM-221 and QUESTION-073 name as missing from the record. See the curation entry of that day. It is the text that the rational-speech-act papers (LIT-816, LIT-821, LIT-809) formalise, so a full reading would let THEORY-172 be checked against its source.

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