231 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 A. Capone, F. Poggi (eds.), Pragmatics and Law, Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology 7, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30385-7_11 Grice, the Law and the Linguistic Special Case Thesis Francesca Poggi Abstract This paper aims to investigate the applicability of Grice’s theory of con- versational implicatures to legal statutes and other general heteronomous legal acts (while acts of private autonomy are excluded from the scope of the present investi- gation). After a brief presentation of Grice’s theory Sect. 1 and an attempt to adapt conversational maxims to normative discourse – which is assumed to be neither true nor false Sect. 2 – I will survey one of the most convincing arguments against the applicability of conversational maxims to the legal domain, the one based on the (absence of a precise, real) legislative intention Sect. 3. I will argue that this argu- ment is not decisive, but that, however, conversational maxims do not apply to legislation: as a matter of fact, legal practice does not include Grice’s conversa- tional maxims among its conventions Sect. 4. This inapplicability, which derives from the very nature of the cooperative principles and the maxims, fits other pecu- liarities of legal practice: perhaps the most relevant is what we may call the contex- tual indeterminacy of legal discourse, a characteristic that is rigidly coupled to its conflicting nature. I will claim that all these features explain why legislation and other general heteronomous legal acts are not special cases of ordinary conversa- tions Sect. 5. Keywords Grice • Conversational implicatures • Legal interpretation • Context • Indeterminacy An earlier version of this paper was presented on March 30th 2015 at the Université Paris Ouest, Nanterre La Défense. I thank all the participants, and, in particular, Pierre Brunet, Carlos Bernal Pulido, and Alessio Sardo for their helpful comments and criticisms. F. Poggi (*) Department “Cesare Beccaria”, University of Milan, Milan, Italy e-mail: francesca.poggi@unimi.it