I mean, I am not saying that I don't occasionally read insanely long texts
like Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but I am not planning
to make something that I do out of perverse interests a general rule.
On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 7:51 PM, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hm... do you really think that anyone is going to read all of this ?
On Sat, Nov 11, 2017 at 6:34 PM, Donal McEvoy <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
wrote:
Attachments not working, so I cut and pasted the case judgment in four
page blocks - I to XIII.
XI is not missing - instead I lost track and numbered XII after X.
I will post something on this case separately, but for the purposes of
our discussion of "meaning" (vis-a-vis it involving a W3 problem-solving
approach to propositional content) it may be best that anyone challenged to
read this case should tackle it without assistance:- since one of many
points I wish to bring out, is how difficult a text may be without any [W3]
background guide, *even where nearly all the words are known to the
reader and the technical terms self-explanatory or explained by the
judgments*.
Armed with some suitable explanatory assistance, the various judgments
may change from appearing something like technical and jargon-ridden
gobbledegook to quite clear and methodical examinations of a series of
practical problems, with their solutions in law discussed, analysed,
weighed and decided. A fundamental question is how easy is it to 'derive'
that "suitable explanation" from the text itself?
I do not expect many people will take up this challenge, but thought it
fair everyone has the opportunity: as previously posted, my reliance on
this case is because (I suggest) texts concerned with propositional content
in 'highly developed' W3 contexts more clearly bring out the role of W3 in
understanding than do examples drawn from basic everyday use of language.
Not only is the role of W3 more evident with such texts, but it is layered
- there are different levels of understanding (i.e. higher and lower).
Lower levels may be sufficient (correct enough) for many purposes, but not
sufficient for others.
The division 3 to 2 in the Supreme Court brings out how the analysis and
weighing of various points differs between the majority and minority (in
fact, it becomes apparent one of the Law Lords swung the result, by
changing from the view held by the eventual minority to what then became
the majority view). It may be seen that all the Law Lords agreed that the
appeal should be rejected - they differ only on the basis, with the
majority preferring a more far-reaching basis than the minority.*
D
L
*
Mild spoiler alert: at the heart of this disagreement are issues of
practicalities and the degree of conclusiveness attached to a specific
legal analysis (here Lord Collins'): the majority think Lord Collin's
analysis suffciently conclusive that the Supreme Court must impose a
correspondingly far-reaching basis for rejecting the appeal; the minority
do not think it sufficiently conclusive, and would accordingly prefer to
dismiss the instant appeal on a narrower ground, leaving the more
far-reaching basis to be decided only when confronted with an appeal that
demands it.
