{"id":4061,"date":"2018-12-03T05:03:05","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T05:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/12\/03\/literal-and-figurative\/"},"modified":"2018-12-03T05:03:05","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T05:03:05","slug":"literal-and-figurative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/12\/03\/literal-and-figurative\/","title":{"rendered":"Literal and Figurative"},"content":{"rendered":"

Suppose I am giving an argument while leading a hike. The guy directly behind me says, "I'm not following you." The sentence is ambiguous. In one sense — call it the first — it is plainly false; in the other sense — call it the second — it could be true. If the hiker behind me is not joking or lying, he is stating that he doesn't understand my argument, or see how the premises support the conclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, we have here two different uses of 'follow.'<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

My question is: Is the second use literal or figurative?<\/span><\/p>\n

Cast your vote for one of the four candidates below:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

A. Both uses are literal.<\/span>
B. Both uses are figurative.<\/span>
C. The first is literal, the second is figurative.<\/span>
D. The first is figurative, the second is literal.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(The same problem arises with respect to my use of 'see' above. Literal or figurative? If I see or don't see how a conclusion follows from premises, is that a literal or a figurative use of 'see'?)<\/span><\/p>\n

See my Facebook page for the votes.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Suppose I am giving an argument while leading a hike. The guy directly behind me says, "I'm not following you." The sentence is ambiguous. In one sense — call it the first — it is plainly false; in the other sense — call it the second — it could be true. If the hiker behind … Continue reading “Literal and Figurative”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[408,247],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-philosophy-of","category-questions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}