[lit-ideas] Re: Insults Which Are Humourous (Maybe)


--- On Sat, 8/5/10, jlsperanza@xxxxxxx <jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
 
> "Similarly, one cannot say, "He was being humorous, but I
> failed to recognise the humour."

These "one cannot say"/"that's nonsense"-types are generally to be approached 
while checking one's wallet. It seems clear (to me anyways) that someone can 
quite sensibly say "He was being humorous" - perhaps because everyone else is 
cracking up - but also say "I failed to recognise the humour" - because the 
remark etc. has left "I" cold. 

Austin's kind of small-minded stipulation reflects a wider mistake, one that 
underpins "epistemic logic". Epistemic logic focuses on the logic of subjective 
belief as the underpinning of knowledge-claims: but if we accept a distinction 
between objective and subjective knowledge, it becomes to easy to accept that a 
person can accept something as an objective fact even though it clashes with 
their subjective belief. The person simply has to be sane enough that their 
subjective belief is fallible and that their belief something lacked any 
humorous intent may be found wanting, for example where everyone else gets the 
humour. Their recognition that 'objectively' there was humour in a remark etc. 
does not at all mean they 'subjectively' find it humourous.

As Popper says in "Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach", the 
recognition of a difference between objective and subjective knowledge renders 
so-called "epistemic logic" an irrelevance, and simply another manifestation of 
the "subjectivist blunder" that lies at the heart of centuries of thinking 
about knowledge.

Of course, there are genuine problems when dealing with intent: in law they 
arise particularly in setting the out when one can "attempt the impossible".

Consider:
A attempts to bring x into the country.
A believes x is y.
But x is non-y.
Has A attempted to bring y into the country?
[Eg. x = white powder; y = heroin]

The problem is a switch between subjective and objective modes for 
'conceptualising' x when considered as an "object" in an attempt.

D
Dashg







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