Category: Language Matters

Word of the Day: Aboulie with a note on Literary Pathography

I came across this French word in Lyndall Gordon’s T. S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life (W. W. Norton & Co., 1998), p. 177: “Here is the heart of Eliot’s aboulie in the autumn of 1921: a horrified glimpse of human depravity and the fear that few have the stature to transcend it.” I should have realized that  it is the French form of ‘abulia.’  Merriam-Webster: an abnormal lack of ability to act or to make decisions.  Further:

The English term we use today comes from a New Latin word that combines the prefix a-, meaning “without,” with the Greek word boulē, meaning “will.” Abulia can refer to the kind of generalized indecision that makes it impossible to choose what flavor ice cream you want, though it was created to name a severe medical disorder that can render a person nearly inert.

Cf. here:

Le terme « aboulie » provient du grec ancien a- (privatif) et boulê (volonté), signifiant littéralement « absence de volonté ». En psychiatrie, il désigne un trouble mental caractérisé par une diminution ou une privation de la volonté, rendant difficile l’initiation et la coordination des actions, même planifiées.

I thank Vito Caiati for recommending Gordon’s outstanding 721 page biography five summers ago. I am currently re-reading it.  Biblioteca Vallicelliana  accession date: 9 July 2021.  The real Biblioteca Vallicelliana in Rome is described here.  Been there, done that. I would be surprised if Dr. Caiati has never played the archivarius in its depths.  I myself did not make it inside. Came at the wrong time, a pretty Italian woman informed me. Lunch time, siesta, la dolce vita, the Italian thing, their thing. La loro cosa.

T. S. Eliot is a man worth a 700 page plus biography. I am not so sure about  Richard Yates, John Cheever, Charles Jackson, and Philip Roth, literary artists of high relatively recent repute. The consummate literary biographer Blake Bailey has written stomping tomes about each.  They are meticulously  done and you will not find a bad sentence anywhere in those thousands of pages.  I have read the first three.

But I wonder:  is it a good use of a life to poke through the details of lives of men far from exemplary? Eliot was imperfect but he had a sense of what is at stake in this life.  Yates didn’t.  Cheever, the ‘Catholic cocksman,’ did, but refused to rein in his concupiscence which he freely indulged  with both sexes. Poor Mary Maldisposta,* as he called his wife.  He was ever eager to mount her, well into his old age, unsated by his extramural activities, but Mary, though no prude, was, well, maldisposta. Can you blame her?

At what point does literary pahthography negate the value of literary biography?

And what about me? How much am I a philosopher seeking to answer the question How should we live? and how much a literary voyeur?

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*Maldisposta is the feminine singular form of the Italian adjective maldisposto, which translates to ill-disposed, hostile, unfavorable, or prejudiced.  It describes a person or attitude that is unwilling, averse, or openly antagonistic towards someone or something.  (AI generated.)

Rhetorical Questions

I asked, “Don’t potencies need to be grounded in something actual?” Tom Carroll responded, “I think you meant that rhetorically, but yes — that is the way I understand it.”

Two points.

First, rhetorical questions should be used sparingly if at all in serious, non-polemical writing. If you have something to say, say it and use the indicative mood.  So no, I did not mean the question about potencies rhetorically.  When I write philosophy I avoid rhetorical questions.  It is different when I write polemically. For example, “Whoever said that illegal aliens are illegal persons?”  is an example of a rhetorical question. *

Second, how should we define ‘rhetorical question’?  A rhetorical  question is a sentence, spoken or written, that is grammatically interrogative but logically indicative.  It is a sentence in the form of a question used to make a statement or assert a proposition. A sentence is not the same as the proposition it is used, by someone on a given occasion, to express.  We use ‘The sky is blue’ to express the same proposition a German speaker expresses when he  says Der Himmel ist blau.  The two sentences, which express one and the same sense (Frege’s Sinn) are both token-distinct and type-distinct. They are type-distinct because they belong to different languages.  These facts point us in a Platonic direction.

Just what is the ontological status of this proposition (Frege’s Gedanke)  that is one to the many of its sentential expressions?  And what about language-bound linguistic types, in particular sentence types, which are different for different languages? What is their ontic and epistemic status? What is their mode of being and how do we know them?  Do you eyeball (literally see) the type? No you don’t. These types too are one to the many of their tokens. These two questions pose quite the challenge to the nominalists among us and give aid and comfort to Platonists and other species of realists.

But I digress.

One more observation anent rhetorical uses of sentences. A father says to his teenaged daughter who borrowed the old man’s car and is seen yapping on a cell phone while driving: ” Do you have to talk on that blasted phone while driving?”

I’d say that that is a rhetorical question too despite the fact that the semantic content of the man’s grammatically interrogative sentence is not indicative but imperative.  He is issuing a command, not making a statement, by the use of a grammatically interrogative sentence.

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*By the way, polemics has no place in philosophy proper, a topic for a separate post, wherein I would have to define ‘philosophy proper.’ This goes hand-in-hand with my deep conviction that to philosophize is to inquire, and not to promote or defend a ready-made worldview.  It follows that an apology for philosophy is not a defense of any particular philosophy,  but of the practice of philosophy-as-inquiry. Philosophies are many; philosophy is one. It also follows that a particular philosopher’s  apologia pro vita sua (apology for his life) such as the one Socrates offers in the eponymous Platonic dialogue, is a defense of the highest and most noble form of the life of inquiry.   The Latin phrase alludes to a title of an autobiographical work by John Henry Newman, which I haven’t read, but whose The Idea of the University I have read and recommend that you read. If I were king of the world I would force ever leftist university admin to copy it out by hand.

 

Truth, Accuracy, and the Delusional Al Gore

Over at Real Clear Energy:

Twenty years ago, in 2006, former Vice President Al Gore released his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which included ominous and even hysterical warnings about a coming climate apocalypse if mankind did not dramatically change its ways. In the two decades since its release, the film’s most dire warnings have proven to be inaccurate.

I have nothing good to say about Al Bore and his boiling oceans. What caught my eye, pedant that I am, is the author’s confusion of truth and accuracy, a distinction I explain both truly and accurately in the appropriately appellated Substack article, Truth and Accuracy.

The confusion is very common, yet another sign of the Decline of the West. Or am I exaggerating, just for fun? It is 2:55 AM local time, the coffee is coming in, the adrenalin is surging, and the old man is having a blast. I’ve been up since midnight; finished reading a short story by the underappreciated Richard Yates, “Regards at Home,” cleaned up cat vomit, meditated from 1:17 to 2:10, and will now do  some serious writing on my book, if I don’t play a blitz chess game first. And then at 4:00 to the mountain bike! The strenuous life is best by test.

On the Misuse of ‘Conspiracy’ and ‘Conspiracy Theory’

Hillary Clinton spoke of a “vast right wing conspiracy” directed against her husband. That was some years back. Maybe that’s where the linguistic mischief started. How can a conspiracy be vast and composed of half the population?
A CONSPIRACY is a clandestine agreement among a small group of people to achieve a nefarious end, typically by means of treason or treachery. The members of a conspiracy are called conspirators. They meet in secret and in small numbers. Hillary's abuse of English is plain: conservatives do not form a secret organization; they are not few in number; and their opposition to Bill Clinton and his policies was not nefarious, treasonous, or treacherous.
A conspiracy THEORY alleges that a conspiracy is under way or has occurred to bring about some event. An example is the theory that 9/11 was an 'inside job.' Some conspiracy theories are true, and some false; some are well-supported by evidence, others are not. None of the 9/11 conspiracy theories are well- supported in my opinion. But that in not the present point. The present point is that it is a mistake to assume that every conspiracy theory is false or baseless.
It is also a mistake to refer to any theory or any bit of groundless speculation as a conspiracy theory. Not every theory is a conspiracy theory. A conspiracy theory alleges a conspiracy where ‘conspiracy’ is defined as above. Finally, it is a mistake to oppose theories to facts, as if no theory can be true.

‘Each Other’ and ‘One Another’

“Style is the physiognomy of the mind.” (Arthur Schopenhauer) Depending on your style of mind, you will find the following either tedious and pedantic or a pleasurable exercise in precise analysis and careful thinking.

Ought the title phrases be used interchangeably by good writers, or is there some distinction we need to observe? Compare ‘less’ and ‘fewer.’ Good writers know that ‘less’ is used with mass nouns such as ‘food,’ ‘furniture,’ and ‘snow’ whereas ‘fewer’ is employed with such count nouns as ‘meals,’ ‘tables,’ and ‘snow plows.’ Correct: ‘If you eat less, you consume fewer calories.’ Incorrect: ‘If you eat less, you consume less calories.’ The second sentence should grate against your linguistic sensibilities.

No doubt there are schoolmarm strictures that good writers may violate with impunity. ‘Never split an infinitive’ and ‘Never begin a sentence with a conjunction’ are two examples. But I deny that the fewer-less distinction is in the same grammatical boat: it reflects prima facie logical and ontological distinctions that need to be acknowledged. They are distinctions of the Manifest Image, to borrow a term from Wilfrid Sellars, distinctions that are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Whether these distinctions can survive deeper logical and ontological analysis is a further question.

Bill and Ron are chess players who play each other on Sunday afternoons. But we could just as well say that they play one another on Sunday afternoons. For if each plays the other, then each plays another. And if each one plays another, then each one plays the other given that there are only two players. Now suppose Bill and Ron start a chess club with more than two members. When the members meet they play one another, not each other. Why? Suppose there are four members. Each one plays one of the others; it is not the case that each one plays the other – for the simple reason that there are three others. Since each one plays one of the three others, each one plays another.

The Sage of the Superstitions therefore lays down the following rule. ‘Each other’ and ‘one another’ are stylistic variants of each other, and are to that extent intersubstitutable salva significatione in contexts in which two things stand in some sort of reciprocal relation. In contexts in which more than two things stand in some sort of reciprocal relation, however, ‘one another’ is correct and ‘each other’ incorrect.

How did I arrive at this? Well, I gave an argument that appeals to your reason. I did not invoke any authority – that would be unphilosophical. Nor does actual usage cut any ice with me. Since grammar has a normative component, it cannot merely describe actual usage. For if boneheads prevail, usage degenerates. Describing the details of degeneration may well be a worthwhile socio-linguistic exercise, but conservatives, here as elsewhere, want to impede degeneration rather than merely record it. Grammar must be based in logic, logic in ontology, ontology in what, onto-theology? That is one philosophical project.

What do Democrats Mean by ‘Democracy’?

The Dems are always going on about 'our democracy,' their noble defense of it, and the Republicans' nefarious assault upon it.  But they never tell us what they mean by 'democracy.' One is left to speculate.  Here is David Brooks commenting on the recent gerrymandering/redistricting contretemps:

I understand the argument. But let's do a little ethical experiment here. You're in World War I. The Germans use mustard gas on civilians, and it helps them. Do you then decide, 'Okay, we're going to use mustard gas on civilians?' What Trump ordered Abbott to do in Texas is mustard gas on our democracy. (emphasis added)

One gets the distinct impression that for Democrats, 'democracy' means our party, the Democrat party.  Accordingly, to defend and preserve democracy is to defend, preserve, and enhance the power of the Democrat party by any and all means necessary including gerrymandering.  After all, they are (in their own eyes) wonderful people; so whatever they do must be wonderful too. But when we do unto them what they have long done unto us, we are despicable 'fascists' out to destroy 'democracy.'  

'Fascist' is the pejorative counterpart of the Dem's honorific 'democracy.' 'Fascist' is the Left's favorite F-word, although, thanks to Hunter Biden and others,  the F-word itself may be coming to occupy the top slot in the depredatory Left's deprecatory lingo.  Hunter and the benighted Beto O'Rourke seem incapable these days of uttering  a sentence free of F-bomb ornamentation. 

I should think that both the pejorative and the honorific, as used by the Dems, ought to enter retirement.  For they know too little history to know what 'fascist' means, and their actions show that there is little that is democratic about them.  Or do you think the coup against Joe Biden and his replacement on the 2024 Dem ticket by Kamala Harris was a democratic action? Quite the contrary!

The subversion of language is the mother of all subversion. The contemporary Dems are a pack of subversives out to destroy our republic. And yes, it is a republic, not a democracy , even when the word is used responsibly. It is a constitutionally-based republic and is democratic only to the extent that the people have a say in who shall represent them.  

‘Journo’ Bias at the AP and the Meaning of ‘Shyster’

'Journo' is my term of disapprobation-unto-contempt for liberal-left journalists. It is on a par with 'shyster' as a term of abuse for a certain sort of lawyer. Dig this from today's news:

NEW YORK (AP) — A club shooting in the New York City borough of Brooklyn early Sunday morning has left three people dead and nine others wounded in a year of record-low gun violence in the city.

NYC is quite the craphole these days, both above and under ground, and she seems bent on becoming the cesspool of the nation. Madman Mamdani the Islamo-commie-anti-semite, has a good shot at the mayoralty, I am told. 

On the Etymology of 'Shyster' (written 4 July 2011)

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.' From German scheissen, to shit? That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?' "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich: hideous, atrocious, abominable. Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery."

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins, p. 659:

Shyster, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846. Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy, i.e., to be shy money when betting. Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang. See here for a review. Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology. 'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom. Nor does it come from 'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right. 'Shyster' is from the German Scheisser, one who defecates.

The estimable and erudite Dr. Michael Gilleland, self-styled antediluvian, bibliomaniac, and curmudgeon, who possesses an uncommonly lively interest in matters scatological, should find all of this interesting. I see that the Arizona State University  library has a copy of Gerald Leonard Cohen's Origin of the Term "Shyster." Within a few days it should be in my hands.

‘Asylum Seekers’

Is a home invader an asylum seeker? Only in very rare cases.  So why are people who immigrate illegally called asylum seekers? A few are but most are not. What we have here, once again, is the characteristic 'progressive' abuse of language. You should have learned by now that no word or phrase is safe around a leftist. Conservatives are not against asylum; they are against the abuse of asylum.

At the same time that so-called progressives abuse 'asylum,' they also abuse 'xenophobic' when they apply this term to those of us who stand for the rule of law. You are one dumb conservative if you acquiesce in the Left's abuse of language. 

If you are a conservative, don't talk like a 'liberal.'

He who controls the terms of the debate controls the debate.

‘Pastime’

Whatever we are here for, we are not here to pass time. Our time is to be used and used well. You say it doesn't matter how we spend our time since nothing matters? That may or may not be so.  But it matters which.  If something does matter and you live as if nothing matters you may end up not only having wasted your time but  your eternity as well. So time  spent getting to the bottom of this question is time well spent.