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I see a ton of imprecision in technical discussions here daily, and that's a topic on which one would expect some expertise here. And yet the pedantry that rece

by _jal 9y ago

I see a ton of imprecision in technical discussions here daily, and that's a topic on which one would expect some expertise here. And yet the pedantry that receives is far less annoying than the inevitable tax avoidance cliche-rants. Why? Because there the pedantry is at least topical. Here, it is arguing language in order to grind an axe on a side issue almost completely unrelated to the Ikea founder.

dsacco 9y ago
Natural language philosophy constitutes legitimate dialectics, not pedantry. In the former you add precision by first synthesizing an agreement of terminology and introducing relevant definitions. In the latter you argue against the meaning of a word instead of the intended meaning of the argument. In point of fact, it’s pedantic to dismiss an argument from legality on the grounds that it’s “legal” and not “ethical”, because legalislation (and more importantly the reasoning behind it) is a subset of ethics. A carefully considered discussion will include the existing literature that has come out of previously considered discussion; therefore it is fully reasonable to consider legal arguments in a discussion of ethics. To reiterate, you need not agree with legal arguments, but to call them pedantic or irrelevant is simply incorrect. They’re exceptionally topical.
- _jal 9y ago
  This is not a philosophy seminar, you're not engaging in normal conversational norm setting at this point, and this game was boring in high school. Have fun, but you'll have to have it with someone else.
- laughingman2 9y ago
  >Natural language philosophy constitutes legitimate dialectics, not pedantry. In the former you add precision by first synthesizing an agreement of terminology and introducing relevant definitions. What you describe is not the only view of language. If you are not being pedantic, you might consider the Wittgenstien's view on how language is like a game. So there are different classes of language games, and one can argue that legal one is not the one being played out in a internet forumn. Legalism is language of courts, derives its meaning from its use to resolve disputes. So deriving the meaning of ethics as used in normal conversation language game from legal grounds is being pedantic.

by _jal 9y ago

dsacco 9y ago

Natural language philosophy constitutes legitimate dialectics, not pedantry. In the former you add precision by first synthesizing an agreement of terminology and introducing relevant definitions. In the latter you argue against the meaning of a word instead of the intended meaning of the argument. In point of fact, it’s pedantic to dismiss an argument from legality on the grounds that it’s “legal” and not “ethical”, because legalislation (and more importantly the reasoning behind it) is a subset of ethics. A carefully considered discussion will include the existing literature that has come out of previously considered discussion; therefore it is fully reasonable to consider legal arguments in a discussion of ethics. To reiterate, you need not agree with legal arguments, but to call them pedantic or irrelevant is simply incorrect. They’re exceptionally topical.

_jal 9y ago
This is not a philosophy seminar, you're not engaging in normal conversational norm setting at this point, and this game was boring in high school. Have fun, but you'll have to have it with someone else.
laughingman2 9y ago
>Natural language philosophy constitutes legitimate dialectics, not pedantry. In the former you add precision by first synthesizing an agreement of terminology and introducing relevant definitions. What you describe is not the only view of language. If you are not being pedantic, you might consider the Wittgenstien's view on how language is like a game. So there are different classes of language games, and one can argue that legal one is not the one being played out in a internet forumn. Legalism is language of courts, derives its meaning from its use to resolve disputes. So deriving the meaning of ethics as used in normal conversation language game from legal grounds is being pedantic.