[lit-ideas] Re: Censorship Battle Over Frenchman's Face [was War Is War Is War]
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2013 10:13:11 +0100 (BST)
Among the many arguments against there being a need for 'defining terms' [as
opposed to, say, indicating in which of many possible senses we are using
words, which may often be helpful] some are logical: either (1) the definition
uses undefined terms, so the problem of definition is merely shifted to other
undefined terms (and if these undefined terms are adequate, why not the initial
ones?; they can really only be deemed adequate by some kind of 'dogma'); or (2)
the definition uses terms that are to be defined by other undefined terms,
leading to infinite regress; or (3) we escape these options by defining the
terms of definition in terms of the term to be defined, leading to circularity.
So there is a definitional 'trilemma' [dogmatism, infinite regress,
circularity] that parallels Fries' 'trilemma' in the theory of knowledge.
Popper noted this of course, as well as explaining how the misconceived search
for exactness in meaning parallels the vain search for certainty as regards
truth.
Definitions do not play the role in science that they often play elsewhere and
this is among the main reasons for scientific advance against the obscurantism
and scholasticism that have plagued other fields of thought..
He might find Geach goes just a little too far in his language, but the excess
may be justified to goad the unreflective: for many intelligent people (or
otherwise intelligent people) believe in the value and even necessity of
'defining terms'; and many books, and even real-life discussions, get bogged
down in time-wasting definitional preliminaries of this sort.
D
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, 6 September 2013, 22:51
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Censorship Battle Over Frenchman's Face [was War Is
War Is War]
> Well, I am not sure how the image is censored if we can view it right
> here on the Internet, is this somehow confidential ?
>
> Wondering about the definition of censorship,
Two news agencies withdrew the image, after having displayed it for a
while: Agence France-Presse, and Reuters. (I think they did a public
service.)
This really doesn't strike me as censorship, and I hope there's no
attempt to define censorship, until those interested in defining
'mistake,' have come to a conclusion.
'This last argument, on a previous occasion of its use, was met with the
ploy that I hadn’t proved “Warszawa” to be a Polish word, for I had
supplied no rigorous definition of the word “word”. But it is just a
Socratic sophistry to argue that a proposition may not be plainly true
unless the terms in it are defined—let alone ‘rigorously’ defined.
“Define your terms is a regular move for political hecklers, for writers
of letters to newspapers, for idle tosspots who argue inconsequentially
over their beer; after bedeviling philosophy for centuries, the Socratic
argument has found its proper level; let us keep it there.'
Peter Geach, in Logic Matters [a collection of his papers]; the original
article appeared in the Review of Metphysics, 1969.
Robert Paul,
who just glimpsed a TV commercial for Guinness, which included Robert
Frost's lines, 'from what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who
favor fire.' I missed their relevance to stout.
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