Posted by zeugma on January 8, 2006, at 14:58:58
In reply to Re: Too bad attending no longer appeals to me. » zeugma, posted by alexandra_k on January 8, 2006, at 14:28:46
but don't you have some sympathy for the ideal of a civil society?>>
not when civility is the be-all and end-all.
and civility is like truth in this way- no two people will agree on what is civil behavior.
and who gets to set the rules? That is not a question about civility, that is a question about politics.
And we know that sooner or later, someone is going to say something that is 'uncivil' to someone else when talking freely about politics. And that if they don't, it is only the presence of a very powerful hand that is keeping them from expressing such things. And whose hand is that? And... but enough on that. By the way, textually speaking, we could quibble over what i meant by the word 'expressed.' You said he did not express a judgement, he only implied one. Grice says, The presence of a conversational implicature must be capable of being worked out." p.31, "Studies in the Way of Words". (I feel like a pedantic *uncvil term*, no matter; it's keeping me civil [I hope]well, not really, doublespeak drains the life out of me, but such are the rules of the game, and for some reason I am assuming I have an audience.) For Grice, the implicature IS the meaning of the utterance- not the conventional meaning, true, but it carries truth-value- viz.
"Since the truth of a conversational implicatum is not required by the truth of what is said (what is said may be true- what is implicated may be false), the implicature is not carried by what is said, but only by the saying of what is said, or by 'putting it that way.'""(Ibid., p.39.)
It is clear that by this means a great many uncivil, hurtful, damning truths can be conveyed to others without a civility detector raising an alarm. I am having a pleasant afternoon, are you?
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:5509
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20051205/msgs/596641.html