tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35658622.post3997071682152328523..comments2023-11-18T08:09:26.056+13:00Comments on Abandoned Footnotes: Big Lies at the Monkey CageXavier Marquezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10099356104979121153noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35658622.post-66042439929659578042017-01-28T22:52:25.969+13:002017-01-28T22:52:25.969+13:00As someone who works in a scientific framework of ...As someone who works in a scientific framework of thinking, I recognize that someone like Donald Trump (Putin, etc.) is not using language in what I would consider a normal way; he's playing a different "language game" in the sense of Wittgenstein. In the truth-seeking world, when we make a knowledge claim, we expect that our claim will be subject to critique, and in our research we constantly ask ourselves, "How do I know I've got this right?" Trump is an extreme example of someone who has not the slightest acquaintance with the notion of truth, but whose thinking is completely "Napoleonic", in the sense that the entire faculty of intelligence, such that it is, is bent toward getting what he wants, and utterances have only instrumental significance relative to this aim. But it's not just the instrumental lies; praxis is also affected. His understanding of problems is already right, just because it's his, because he "has a good brain" and his uncle was a prof at MIT, his solutions are already the best because they're his, etc., and what's his must dominate. Talk about pathology! The man is intellectually sick. It's not possible to have a normal conversation with this man. News media needn't regard anything he says as having any meaning worth taking seriously, but should wait until actions are done and then critique those. I need to think more about the regulative principles that govern language use in these two different cases, one productive and effective, the other effective perhaps in a narrow sense, but pathological in the larger view. (The problem is larger than just the lying.)<br /><br />(BTW, a lot of people voted for him because they immediately understood the way he thinks about things and the language he uses to express it, because he reflects the way they themselves think about things and express it, but it's not a good way to think about things, and the expression is impoverished; if I were a grade school teacher, I would be concerned.)Nqabuthonoreply@blogger.com