The Gricean Notion of Cooperative Hierarchy Revisited

Quarrels on Grice’s notion of cooperative principle have never ceased. The underlying reason lies in the lack of a clear and systemic classification of, and the disagreement on, the levels or types of cooperation. Comparisons and evaluations are made in this study to show their respective strong points and weak points, with pros and cons offered. The notion cooperation is not employed by Grice in a sole and distinct sense. The study shows that different types or levels co-exist in the notion of cooperation.