![]() The most prominent approaches have been introduced by Horn ( 1984, 2007, 2012), Levinson ( 2000), and relevance theorists (Sperber & Wilson, 1995 Carston, 2002). Both Neo- and Post-Gricean pragmatics cut the number of conversational maxims. Various scholars propose alternative principles or offer different explanations for the generation of implicatures (Bach, 2012 Davis, 2019). The conversational maxims have since become an object of both philosophical and linguistic study. Yet, one may respond, the same goes for all sorts of other maxims. He simply stipulates them and argues that it is profitable and therefore reasonable to observe them. However, apart from a passing reference to Kant (Grice, 1989a, p. 26), Grice is silent on the question of how he came to discover the conversational maxims and has little to say about their epistemological status. By distinguishing a number of conversational maxims, such as “Avoid ambiguity,” he is able to explain the generation of conversational implicatures, which are part of the speaker meaning but not of the sentence meaning. Hence, the conversational maxims are rules whose occasional application is a necessary condition of language and conversation.įamously, Paul Grice draws a distinction between speaker meaning (utterer’s meaning, for Grice) and sentence meaning. It seems that it would not be possible for children to recognize a significant number of lexical meanings under such circumstances. Subsequently, we pursue a thought experiment concerning what would happen if speakers constantly broke one or another of the maxims. To this end, we introduce Grice’s account of conversational maxims and categories and compare it briefly with Kant’s thoughts on categories. We argue that the conversational maxims can be identified by the use of a transcendental argument in the spirit of Kant. Yet regardless of how his ingenious invention really came about, one might wonder how the conversational maxims can be detected and distinguished from other sorts of maxims. ![]() ![]() He simply proclaims them without justification. Apart from a passing reference to Kant, Grice never explains in his writings how he came to discover his conversational maxims. ![]()
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