Before we get into it, I just want to share this great idea I stumbled on the other day—A Substack Library! It’s a great way to find your next Substack read. If you decide to check them out, don’t forget to restack a post or two to spread the word and grow the library. It’s a button somewhere up at the top of all posts and it looks like this:
And hey, while you’re at it, you might as well restack this post too! :)
Now, onto TRUTH!
To take the poll, click on your answer choice. Your answer is completely anonymous, not even I will know. This is just for fun.
Notes:
Take the last poll: Will AI ever become capable of understanding truth?
Table of contents with chapter links at the end of each post.
We appreciate your generosity!
Neal (Santa Claus), Tina, & Geordie Bear
2
Violations of the Principle of Generosity
THERE ARE INVISIBLE THINGS the necessity of which is most poignantly known by their absence. Air is one of them. The principle of generosity is another.
In cases of straightforward linguistic misuse, such as we find in the casual, vague, lazy, unguarded, and good-natured but careless use of language that characterizes almost all of ordinary speech, a great deal of generosity is required, and even then this generosity often goes unnoticed. But when we are unable to interpret what the speaker means to say, we either recognize our inability to understand and (hopefully) ask for clarification or we think we understand but don’t, in which case there is the very real possibility of landing ourselves in a pointless dispute. If we are able to correct the misuse, then we must have understood what the speaker meant, but failed, to say. Perhaps this explains why being corrected can be so annoying; we know the interpreter could have made the necessary allowances rather than play schoolmarm.
In heated argument, when we are trying to make someone look bad, or when we are simply being small spirited and contrary, we may purposefully violate the principle of generosity. In political debates, for instance, we have seen numerous examples of what might be called the principle of stinginess, which tells us to understand our opponent’s language in the most detrimental sense possible. In academic situations it is more common to achieve the same humiliating effect by what we might call the principle of literal-minded puzzlement. In this the interpreter makes little to no effort to understand, more or less consciously feigning incomprehension to make the speaker look thoughtless or inarticulate. The speaker is then forced to explain what should have been clear enough.
Most interesting, perhaps, are cases where the principle of generosity is ignored not so much out of a desire to humiliate, but because the speakers have come to distrust each other deeply, as we find in the intractable disputes of spouses whose relationship has broken down to the point where they are, as we say, no longer able to talk to each other. This is quite true since the principle of generosity is replaced by something like: interpret what is said in such a way as to assume the most painful possible meaning for yourself and attribute to the speaker the worst possible motives for saying it. Anyone who has ever gone through disputes of this sort knows how truly hopeless they are, how the strongest efforts of both parties result only in an ever-deepening quagmire of confusion and accusation, a breakdown of communication.
It should be obvious from experience, though somehow it is not, that real communication requires much more than a clear and precise use of words. Of course, communication requires a certain amount of clarity on the speaker’s part, but no one can compensate for an audience who takes the wrong interpretive stance. And when the audience’s attitude is right, there can be genuine understanding, even when the speaker’s usage is extremely poor by academic standards. The principle of generosity is undoubtedly part of that attitude. We do sometimes violate the principle of generosity, but if this were the norm, it would destroy the usefulness of language as surely as doubting the firmness of the ground would destroy the usefulness of standing.
Perhaps the reason these points seem surprising at first is because we are so used to the artificial, semi-sanitized language used in academic works, scientific articles, user manuals, and legal contracts that we tend to think perfect clarity could be achieved if only we were more fastidious in following the rules laid out in the grammar books. But the truth is, technical languages are only partly successful in their effort to eliminate ambiguity. If legalese were able to eliminate the need for interpretation, lawyers and judges would be out of work. The most sophisticated scientific theories are essentially brilliant metaphors with a pragmatic justification rather than an intuitive one. The use of non-Euclidean geometry, warped space, imaginary numbers, the surreal descriptions of subatomic physics—all of this is poetry, but poetry that depends for its validation on something other than an intuitive grasp of language and a sensitivity to ordinary experience. Even Anglo-American philosophers of the analytic tradition speak of their points as moves, of their views as positions, of their writings as papers, or of language use as a game. Derrida has had a good deal of easy fun exposing the metaphors that constitute some of the most deadpan philosophy ever written.
One reason why technical language cannot avoid ambiguity is because new words can be defined only through the old ones, rather the way revolutionary changes can only be brought about by those within the pre-revolutionary culture. Just as politically this means the attitudes of the old order will tend to reappear in the new, so linguistically, the ambiguities of ordinary language will, to one degree or another, reappear within artificial, technical language.
Another reason goes deeper. No matter how strictly a new term might be introduced into a specialized discipline, immediately upon acceptance the word takes on a life of its own. Inevitably, meaning alters with usage—people will want to use a term in different ways to suit them—and different forms of ambiguity will eventually spring up.
The most important difference between ordinary and technical language is not that one is vague and the other is clear. It isn’t altogether obvious that technical language is clearer—quite often it is not—but even if we suppose it is, on that score it is simply a matter of degree. Although technical language may be said to require somewhat less generosity, in the end it too must rely on the generosity of its audience. Even so, there is a qualitative difference—ordinary language does not seek to eliminate ambiguity, but, like poetry, uses it to the maximum effect. To do this, ordinary language, like poetry, must depend on its audience to interpret meaning through a broad application of the principle of generosity, as we will see in the next chapter.
Table of Contents
What do YOU think?
Suppose we lived in completely distinct information bubbles. Would that mean we lived in distinct realities? Why or why not?
“We do sometimes violate the principle of generosity, but if this were the norm, it would destroy the usefulness of language...” Can political polarization put us in real danger of losing our common language?
Do you agree that “the most sophisticated scientific theories are essentially brilliant metaphors…poetry that depends for its validation on something other than an intuitive grasp of language and a sensitivity to ordinary experience”?
Questions? Ideas? Maybe you have something else you’d like to talk about. Feel free to comment!
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