[lit-ideas] "Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss mann schweigen": a tautology?

In a message dated 3/30/2004 8:25:47 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
teme17@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Regarding "The boss is the boss", it is or is not a
tautology depending on whether you understand it as
B = B
or
B(b)
latter meaning the boss has the property of being the
boss, that is being in charge. Roland Barthes wrote,
and later regreted writing, a book on political use of
similar tautologies ("Boys will be boys") where he
basicly stated that the rhetorical use of above kind
example is to argue for B(b) and give B = B as a
justification.
----
Well, Grice gives two examples in 'Logic and Conversation':

(1) Women are women.
(2) War is war

both are, to use the term used by R. Paul in his discussion of 'The boss is 
the boss', given as examples of PATENT tautologies ('Boys _are_ boys' is a 
tautology, 'Boys WILL be boys' is a _contradiction_) generating conversational 
implicatures.

Grice's idea of _patent_ implicature was meant to distinguish those 
_predicative_ utterances from things like

        Alice: Is the song long?
        White Knight: It _is_ long, but very beautiful. Either it will bring 
tears
               to your eyes or...
       Alice: Or else what?
      White Knight: Or else it won't, you know.

                        cited by F. P. Ramsey in 'The Foundations of 
Mathematics' as an illustration of the principle of the excluded third (tertius 
exclusus).

What the White Knight says is _also_ a patent (to me) tautology, but not to 
Michael Dummett. But back to Wittgenstein's

"Wovon mann nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss mann schweigen." 

-- the presence of 'wo' and 'da' reminds one of things like

            "WHERE there is smoke, THERE is fire"

Now, _that_ is _not_ a tautology (neither is: 'where there is smoke, there is 
salmon') -- but the following _is_:

             "Where there are five people, there are three people".

TOWARDS A FORMALISATION -- and a simplification by replacement:

Now, using "~" for 'not' and 'CAN' and 'MUST' as predicates, perhaps it's 
best to see Wittgenstein's No. 7 as a conditional:

          (p) ~CAN((SPEAK-OF (John, p)) 

              -> 

              MUST(CONSIGN-TO-SILENCE (John, p))

--- This formalisation is of the second order, over propositions. It says 
that for any p, such that John (Wittgenstein says 'mann' but John _is_ the name 
of a man) cannot _speak_ of, must John consign to silence. Now, if we replace 
'consign to silence' by '~SPEAK', then the thing _is_ indeed a tautology, q. e. 
d.:

   (p) ~CAN((SPEAK-OF (John, p)) 

        -> 

       ~MUST((SPEAK-OF (John, p))

That this is analytic (and tautological) can be seen that we can place the 
antecedent as premise, the consequent as conclusion, and get a valid syllogism:

                 
         ~CAN((SPEAK-OF (John, p)) 
       ______________________________

      Ergo, 

       MUST(~(SPEAK-OF (John, p))



Cheers,

JL

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