Grice's Maxims

Login and conversation -> connection between natural language and logical formalism. Basically we communicate far more than the literal meaning of the words. Grice wrote, for this to be possible without having some hyper logical, unambiguous language we must be operating under some shared assumptions, what he called the "cooperative principle". We assume we are cooperating with each other when we are talking. We all try to fit what other people say to what's happening or what has just been said.

Maxim of Quantity

Give as much information as required, and no more.

This is why saying "Vegan Tomatoes" sounds weird, although tomatoes are vegan. We already know they are vegan from the word tomato, giving too much information is strange

Maxim of Quality

Tell the truth

Maxim of Relation

Be relevant. The person you are talking to will assume that what you just said is related to something they just said in some way, and they'll try to find what that connection is.

Maxim of Manner

Be clear in what you are saying.

Example of using Grice's Maxim:

A: I'm out of petrol
B: There's a garage down the road

Without context, just using the super literal logical meaning of those sentences, there's no relation there. But if you assume they are following the co-operative principle then you can automatically work out a lot more. - Using the maxim of relation: The garage probably has petrol. - Using the maxim of quantity: That's all I need to say to imply - Hey, you can push your car there, buy fuel, and solve your whole 'being stranded problem' a problem that was also completely implied using the co-operative principle. - Using the maxim of quality: This is the truth and not a lie or a guess. - Using the maxim of manner: You can work out that garage probably is the British slang for gas station and not just someone's garage where people park their car, that would be weird.

When you don't follow the maxims you are looking for conversational implicature. There are 2 ways to break a maxim, you can violate it or you can flout it. Violating it is just lying. Flouting is breaking a maxim in a way that you expect the other person to pick up on.

Example of flouting: A recommendation letter for a philosophy student who you have no faith in: "The student's command of English is excellent, and his attendance at tutorials has been regular." This is technically a letter of recommendation.

It breaks the maxim of quantity, it is far too little information. It doesn't say that the student is actually good at philosophy and they are hoping that the person reading or listening will understand what they are really trying to say.