“But everybody knows what ‘two’ is! You’re being facetious.”
No, not really. Most of the ranting here comes from
1. not precisely defining, and agreeing to, the terms that are being used in discussion, or
2. misinterpreting, intentionally or not, how others are using a term (so easy because the term was not defined properly by the poster in the first place)...
This provides the opportunity to reincarnate a long-neglected topic of study, closely connected to San Francisco, known as General Semantics.
If this “discussion” occurred among US intellectuals 70 years ago, someone would have already made my observation about defining terms.
A basic tenet: If nobody is defining and gaining an acceptance by others of the terms used in a discussion, you will get intellectually nowhere in your discussion and you will come to no agreement...or...each of you will think an agreement means something different. Dead waste of photons...
Soviet communists hated the idea at the time. “How can you rile up the masses if they objectively and rationally discussed things” seemed to be the concern. Ironic, because if the German people had used the basic techniques in the Nazi 1930s, there would have been 50% more young Russian men alive in the 1950s. Which is why it was so popular among the young intellectuals in the US after WWII who really didn’t want another war.
It is particularly appropriate for a Bay Area group since one of the leading proponents was S.I. Hayakawa who was President of San Francisco State University and former US Senator for California. His book, Language in Thought and Action, was a popular explanation of General Semantics for normal people.
Sold a million copies and was his ticket to politics. An easy and pleasant read even today.
If you pursue General Semantics further, skip the esoterica by the founder Korzybski. It is sort of Eselen-culty without any nudity, so, what’s the point?
Have you defined the term “two”? You didn’t here.
“But everybody knows what ‘two’ is! You’re being facetious.”
No, not really. Most of the ranting here comes from
1. not precisely defining, and agreeing to, the terms that are being used in discussion, or
2. misinterpreting, intentionally or not, how others are using a term (so easy because the term was not defined properly by the poster in the first place)...
This provides the opportunity to reincarnate a long-neglected topic of study, closely connected to San Francisco, known as General Semantics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics
If this “discussion” occurred among US intellectuals 70 years ago, someone would have already made my observation about defining terms.
A basic tenet: If nobody is defining and gaining an acceptance by others of the terms used in a discussion, you will get intellectually nowhere in your discussion and you will come to no agreement...or...each of you will think an agreement means something different. Dead waste of photons...
Soviet communists hated the idea at the time. “How can you rile up the masses if they objectively and rationally discussed things” seemed to be the concern. Ironic, because if the German people had used the basic techniques in the Nazi 1930s, there would have been 50% more young Russian men alive in the 1950s. Which is why it was so popular among the young intellectuals in the US after WWII who really didn’t want another war.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/42573948?seq=1
It is particularly appropriate for a Bay Area group since one of the leading proponents was S.I. Hayakawa who was President of San Francisco State University and former US Senator for California. His book, Language in Thought and Action, was a popular explanation of General Semantics for normal people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_in_Thought_and_Action
It was a Book-of-the-Month club selection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Month
Sold a million copies and was his ticket to politics. An easy and pleasant read even today.
If you pursue General Semantics further, skip the esoterica by the founder Korzybski. It is sort of Eselen-culty without any nudity, so, what’s the point?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esalen_Institute