Philosophy
Hanno and I have written a couple of articles on how tautologies, sentences like "It's raining or it's not," can be used in conversation meaningfully. Since a tautology is always true, yes it is either raining or it isn't, it tells you nothing about weather, it is vacuous. But we use them all the time in ways in which they are not meaningless, for example, "Boys will be boys," "First thing first," or A: "Do you want this old machine or a brand new super fast one?" B: "For me, a computer is a computer." We took one category of what we termed "deep tautologies" and worked out the way conversational context gives the tautological utterance meaning. The key to the listener unraveling the speaker's intended meaning was that it was that it was obviously a tautology, obviously a sentence that has no meaning of its own and therefore, as the great philosopher of language H. P. Grice pointed out, it was a violation of the basic principles of conversational cooperation and thus a signal to the listener that the meaning requires an inference, what he called an implicature in order to understand why someone cooperating in the conversation would say something that appears unhelpful or meaningless.
But recently I've become fascinated by a group of expressions that are hidden tautologies, sentences that say nothing, but appear be actual meaningful contributions and I am wondering why we use them. Consider this exchange that I've heard more than once:
I suppose it might be intended to rule out the extreme, but even here it gives no indication where the extreme is located which was the information requested by the asker.
Yet, you hear these disguised tautologies frequently. Why the linguistic evasiveness? Do they mean something that I'm just not picking up on and if so, what? Where deep tautologies are contributions to the conversation that are shaped like sentences that don't make a contribution, these seem like contributions, but really aren't. Is it a psychological/social thing where we don't want to seem unadventurous, so we hedge? Or is there an actual meaning that I'm missing here?
- Good And Clouds
A couple from C. Ewing. First, he asks about the nature of goodness. "Is good (or "goodness" to utilize the "-ness" fixation) natural or non-natural? Explain."We begin with Aristotle's distinction between "good for" (the chair is good for sitting)...
- Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?
A question is a request for information, but, of course, we use sentences that sound like questions for all sorts of other things. In my Critical Thinking class last week we started thinking critically about the question, "Do these pants make my butt...
- Comedy And Convention
Posted by jeff.maynes, 8.2.07. In tribute to the blogger, Steve, I offer this reflection on humor and language. It all began with some thoughts on fruit cake jokes (after a recent Comics Curmudgeon entry). In initial drafts of this post, I considered...
- Logic And Language
Let me try to get to some of the logic and language questions today: Nick + Adam ask, "After a week of debate, we come to you with this question: Is there an example of an argument that one should believe that is inclusive of one or more premises that...
- Four Letter Ethics
As I ready myself to step into the world of the seven second delay, I've been thinking about the ethics of swearing. On the one hand, curse words are just sounds that have been culturally designated as vulgar. To swear in polite conversation is socially...
Philosophy
Not So Deep Tautologies
Hanno and I have written a couple of articles on how tautologies, sentences like "It's raining or it's not," can be used in conversation meaningfully. Since a tautology is always true, yes it is either raining or it isn't, it tells you nothing about weather, it is vacuous. But we use them all the time in ways in which they are not meaningless, for example, "Boys will be boys," "First thing first," or A: "Do you want this old machine or a brand new super fast one?" B: "For me, a computer is a computer." We took one category of what we termed "deep tautologies" and worked out the way conversational context gives the tautological utterance meaning. The key to the listener unraveling the speaker's intended meaning was that it was that it was obviously a tautology, obviously a sentence that has no meaning of its own and therefore, as the great philosopher of language H. P. Grice pointed out, it was a violation of the basic principles of conversational cooperation and thus a signal to the listener that the meaning requires an inference, what he called an implicature in order to understand why someone cooperating in the conversation would say something that appears unhelpful or meaningless.
But recently I've become fascinated by a group of expressions that are hidden tautologies, sentences that say nothing, but appear be actual meaningful contributions and I am wondering why we use them. Consider this exchange that I've heard more than once:
Waiter: "How spicy do you want it?"or
Diner: "I don't like it too spicy."
Hairstylist: "How much should I take off?"In both cases, the response seems meaningful, but it isn't. What does "too spicy" mean? It means "spicier than I like it." So, what the person really said is, "I don't like what I don't like," and has given the waiter absolutely no guidance in the level of spiciness desired.
Customer": "I don't want it too short."
I suppose it might be intended to rule out the extreme, but even here it gives no indication where the extreme is located which was the information requested by the asker.
Yet, you hear these disguised tautologies frequently. Why the linguistic evasiveness? Do they mean something that I'm just not picking up on and if so, what? Where deep tautologies are contributions to the conversation that are shaped like sentences that don't make a contribution, these seem like contributions, but really aren't. Is it a psychological/social thing where we don't want to seem unadventurous, so we hedge? Or is there an actual meaning that I'm missing here?
- Good And Clouds
A couple from C. Ewing. First, he asks about the nature of goodness. "Is good (or "goodness" to utilize the "-ness" fixation) natural or non-natural? Explain."We begin with Aristotle's distinction between "good for" (the chair is good for sitting)...
- Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?
A question is a request for information, but, of course, we use sentences that sound like questions for all sorts of other things. In my Critical Thinking class last week we started thinking critically about the question, "Do these pants make my butt...
- Comedy And Convention
Posted by jeff.maynes, 8.2.07. In tribute to the blogger, Steve, I offer this reflection on humor and language. It all began with some thoughts on fruit cake jokes (after a recent Comics Curmudgeon entry). In initial drafts of this post, I considered...
- Logic And Language
Let me try to get to some of the logic and language questions today: Nick + Adam ask, "After a week of debate, we come to you with this question: Is there an example of an argument that one should believe that is inclusive of one or more premises that...
- Four Letter Ethics
As I ready myself to step into the world of the seven second delay, I've been thinking about the ethics of swearing. On the one hand, curse words are just sounds that have been culturally designated as vulgar. To swear in polite conversation is socially...