Friday
and the moon is made of green cheese
So Austin claims (in lecture XI, I think) that the statement, "France is hexagonal" isn't true or false, but rather it's just "rough." It's a pretty bizarre thing to claim. What he appears to be doing is reading the claim, "France is hexagonal," as "France is roughly hexagonal," and then affirming the truth of that statement.
Normally, I would fell a need to provide argument when I disagree with an eminent philosopher whose work I'm reading, but Austin doesn't provide any reasons that the claim isn't false, and since looking at a map of France doesn't support his point, he's wrong, the statement is false. Either that or France isn't the sort of thing which can be hexagonal or not, since it's quite difficult to explain what a "side of France" is in the relevant fashion. Now that I've written this, I think I'll search for articles explaining why Austin is right.
|
Normally, I would fell a need to provide argument when I disagree with an eminent philosopher whose work I'm reading, but Austin doesn't provide any reasons that the claim isn't false, and since looking at a map of France doesn't support his point, he's wrong, the statement is false. Either that or France isn't the sort of thing which can be hexagonal or not, since it's quite difficult to explain what a "side of France" is in the relevant fashion. Now that I've written this, I think I'll search for articles explaining why Austin is right.
