A strand deals with the idea of a Conversational Maxim and its alleged connection with the Principle of Conversational Co-operation.   This Strand is the idea that the use of language is one among a range of forms of RATIONAL activity, and that any rational activity which does NOT involve the use of language is in various ways importantly parallel to that which does.    This thesis may take the more specific form of holding that the kind of rational activity which the use of language involves is a form of *rational* *cooperation.*    The merits of this more specific idea would of course be independent of the larger idea under which it falls.  In his extended discussion of the properties of conversational practice Grice distinguishes this or that maxims, of this or that principle, observance of which Grice regards as providing, for his Oxford pupils, this or that standard of RATIONAL  discourse.   Grice seeks to represent this or that principles, or this of that axiom, which Grice distinguishes as being themselves dependent on one over-all super-principle enjoining conversational co-operation.   While this or that conversational maxim has on the whole been quite well received by his Oxford pupils — except Strawson — the same cannot, Grice thinks, be said about Grice’s invocation of a supreme principle of conversational co-operation.   One source of trouble has perhaps been that it has been felt that, even in the talk-exchanges of civilised people and Oxonian pupils, brow-beating disputation or conversational sharp practice are far too common or widespread — Grice is talking Oxford philosophy — to be deemed an offense against the fundamental dictates of conversational practice.  A second source of discomfort has perhaps been the thought that, whether its tone is agreeable or disagreeable, much of our talk-exchange is too haphazard to be directed toward *any* end — cooperative or otherwise. Chitchat goes nowhere, unless making the time pass is a journey. Never mind the too abstract maximally efficient mutual influencing!  Perhaps some refinement in our apparatus is called for.     First, it is only this or that ASPECT of our conversational practice which are candidates for evaluation, namely those which are crucial to the RATIONALITY of our conversational practice, rather than to whatever other merits or demerits that practice may possess.    Therefore, nothing on which Grice lectures should be regarded as bearing upon the suitability or unsuitability of this or that particular issue for conversational exploration.    It is then specifically or particularly the RATIONALITY — or irrationality — of conversational conduct which Grice has been concerned to track down rather than any more *general* characterisation of conversational adequacy.     Therefore, we may expect this or that principle of conversational rationality to abstract from the special character of this or that conversational interest.     Second, Grice takes it as a working assumption that, whether a particular enterprise aims at a specifically conversational result or outcome and so perhaps is a specifically conversational enterprise, or whether its central character is more generously conceived as having no special connection with communication, the same principles will determine the rationality of its conduct.    Do not multiply the critiques of reason beyond necessity.    It is irrational to bite off more than you can chew — whether the object of your pursuit is hamburgers or the Truth.    Finally, we need to take into account a distinction between solitary and concerted enterprises.     Grice takes it as being obvious that, insofar as the presence of implicature rests on the character of one or another kind of conversational enterprise, it will rest on the character of concerted rather than solitary talk production.   A Genuine monologue is free from the utterer’s implication.     Therefore, since we are concerned, as theorists, only with concerted talking, we should recognize that, within the dimension of voluntary exchanges (which are all that concern us), collaboration in achieving exchange of information or the institution of decisions may co-exist with a high degree of English Oxonian upper-class reserve, hostility, and chicanery, and with a high degree of diversity in this or that ultimate motivation underlying this or that quite meagre common objective.     Moreover, we have to remember to take into account a secondary range of cases, like cross-examination — in which even this or that common objective is spurious, apparent rather than real.     The joint enterprise is a simulation, rather than an instance, of even the most minimal conversational cooperation.    But such an exchange honours the principle of conversational co-operation — at least to the extent of aping its application.     A similarly degenerate derivative of the primary talk-exchange may be seen in the concerns spuriously exhibited in the really aimless over-the-garden-wall chatter in which most of us from time to time engage.    Grice is now perhaps in a position to provide a refurbished summary of the treatment of conversational practice.    A list is presented of this or that conversational maxim — or this or that “conversational imperative” or imperative of conversational conduct — which is such that, in a paradigmatic case, observance of the maxim or imperative promotes — and its violation dispromotes — conversational rationality;     these include this or that principle as this or that maxims — under the conversational supra-categories of Quantity, Quality, Relation, and Modus.    Somewhat like a moral *commandment* — or decalogue thereof —, this or that maxim, or counsel of conversational prudence — is prevented from being just some member of some disconnected heap of this or that conversational obligation or DUTY — by its dependence on a single supreme Conversational Principle, that of cooperativeness.    An initial class of actual talk-exchanges manifests rationality by its conformity to this or that maxim thus *generated* — or deduced as Saint Matthew’s prefers — by the Principle of Conversational Cooperation.    Another class of exchanges manifests rationality by simulation of the practices exhibited in the initial class.    Conversational signification is thought of as arising in the tollowing way;     a significatum (indicative or imperatival) is the content of that psychological state or attitude which needs to be attributed to the conversationalist  in order to secure one or another of the following results; (a)     that a violation on his part of a conversational maxim is in the circumstances justifiable, at least in his eyes, or     b) that what appears to be a violation by him of a conversational maxim is only a seeming, not a real, violation; the spirit, though perhaps not the letter, of the maxim is respected.    Surely the spirit of the overall principle of conversational cooperation IS respected.    The foregoing account is perhaps closely related to the suggestion made in the discussion of Strand Five about so-called conventional implicature.     It was in effect there suggested that what we may call a conversational significatum is just those assumptions which have to be attributed or ascribed to a conversationalist to justify him in regarding a given sequence of lower-order speech-acts as being *rationalized* — to echo Anna Freud — by their relation to a conventionally indexed higher-order speech-act.    Rationalisation is not rationality — an action caused by no concern for rationality may be rationalized ex post facto.    Grice has so far been a monist, and talking as if the right ground *plan* is to identify, or made manifest, and formulate, for his Oxford pupils, a supreme Conversational Principle which could be used to *generate* or yield by deduction — as St. Matthew deduces the ten commandments from just one injunction — and justify a range of this or that more specific, but still highly general,  conversational maxim which, in turn, could be induced to yet again yield this or that particular conversational directive — applying to a particular subject matter, a context, and a conversational procedure, and Grice has been talking as if this general layout is beyond question correct; the only doubtful matter being whether the proffered Supreme Principle, namely some version of the Principle of Conversational Cooperation is the right selection for the position of supreme Conversational Principle.     Grice has tried to give reasons for thinking, despite the existence of some opposition, that, provided that the cited layout is conceded to be correct, the Conversational Principle proposed is an acceptable candidate.     So far so good.    But Grice does in fact have some doubts about the acceptability of the suggested monistic layout.     It is not at all clear to Grice that this or that conversational maxim, at least if he has correctly identified them as such, does in fact operate as a distinct peg from each of which there hangs an indefinitely large multitude of this or that fully specific conversational directive.     And if Grice did misidentify any of them as this or that conversational maxim, it is by no means clear to Grice what substitutes he could find to do the same job within the same general layout, only to do it differently and better.     What is primarily at fault may well be not the suggested maxims of conversational conduct, but the monistic concept of the layout within which they are supposed to operate.     The monistic layout has four possible problems.    The maxims do not seem to be coordinate.     The maxim of Quality, enjoining the provision of contributions which are genuine rather than spurious (truthful rather than mendacious), does not seem to be just one among a number of recipes for producing contributions; it seems rather to spell out the difference between something's being, and (strictly speaking) failing to be, any kind of contribution at all.    Especially if the shared goal is that of a maximally efficacious mutual influencing.    False information is not an inferior kind of information; it just is not information.    The suggested maxims do not seem to have the degree of mutual independence of one another which the suggested monistic layout seems to require.     To judge whether a conversationalist has been undersupplied or oversupplied with information *seems* to require that he should be aware of the identity of the topic to which the information in question is supposed to relate.    Only after the identification of a focus of relevance can such an assessment be made.    The force of this consideration seems to be blunted by those who seem to be disposed to sever the notion of relevance from the specification of this or that  particular *direction* of relevance.    Though the specification of this or that direction of relevance is necessary for assessment of the adequacy of a given supply of information, it is by no means sufficient to enable an assessment to be made.     Information will *also* be needed with respect to the degree of concern which is or should be extended toward the topic in question, and again with respect to such things as opportunity or lack of opportunity for remedial action.    While it is perhaps not too difficult to envisage the impact upon conversational signification of a real or apparent undersupply of information, the impact of a real or apparent oversupply is much more problematic.    The operation of the principle of relevance, while no doubt underlying one aspect of conversational propriety, so far as conversational signification is concerned has already been suggested to be dubiously independent of the maxim under the conversational category of Quantity.    The remaining maxim distinguished by Grice, that of or under the conversational category of Modus, which Grice represented as prescribing perspicuous presentation, again seems to formulate one form of conversational propriety, but its potentialities as a generator of conversational signification seem to be somewhat open to question. H. P. Grice