What I read
In "Giuliani Says ‘Truth Isn’t Truth’ in Defense of Trump’s Legal Strategy" (2018, Melissa Gomez says that contrary to the definition of the word truth in the Merriam Webster dictionary, which the publisher has tweeted in response, and contrary to the former FBI director James Comey, who has tweeted in response that "Truth exists and truth matters," Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, has likely created a new bad meme that matches the earlier one that there are such things as "alternative facts" from US President Trump's counselor last year. Gomez reports that Giuliani said, "Truth isn’t truth" during an interview on TV.
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My response
To be fair, I thought that Giuliani did have a good idea. I mean, he had an important point to make. Unfortunately, he expressed it very badly, perhaps under the stress of defending his famously badly spoken boss, the current president of the United States. Perhaps what Giuliani needs is a refresher course in academic English, perhaps a workshop that focuses on defining our terms clearly. As I've said in the first draft of my recent paragraph defining the noun philosophy, a dictionary is often only the starting point in giving a useful definition of the word for a complex concept, and truth seems to me a very complex concept, as are facts. For example is it a fact, a truth, that the Earth now circles the sun? Was it a fact, the truth, the sun circled the Earth 2,000 years ago? Is it a fact that Thailand is a country in Southeast Asia? Is it a fact, is it true, that Santa Claus has a long white beard, as his pictures on Christmas cards typically show? You might like to answer these questions in a comment below.
Obviously, what I liked about Gomez's article in today's New York Times is its relevance to what we were looking at in class on Saturday, and what you are currently writing a paragraph to practice. Fortunately, the words truth and fact are not subjects that we might study, so they are not appropriate topics to choose to discuss in answer to the question on page 85 of Skillful. Even they were, they are, like democracy, very complex. The paragraph I've written, even after substantial review and revision, to define the word democracy is still 464 words, which is well over the 300 limit. Democracy is even harder to define than an academic subject such as philosophy. And things like truth and facts are what philosophers write books to define.
And my title? That's just elementary logic.
Obviously, what I liked about Gomez's article in today's New York Times is its relevance to what we were looking at in class on Saturday, and what you are currently writing a paragraph to practice. Fortunately, the words truth and fact are not subjects that we might study, so they are not appropriate topics to choose to discuss in answer to the question on page 85 of Skillful. Even they were, they are, like democracy, very complex. The paragraph I've written, even after substantial review and revision, to define the word democracy is still 464 words, which is well over the 300 limit. Democracy is even harder to define than an academic subject such as philosophy. And things like truth and facts are what philosophers write books to define.
And my title? That's just elementary logic.
- If X is true, then it's also not true. (Giuliani's statement.)
- The president is a pumpkin or he is not a pumpkin.
- If he is not a pumpkin is true, then from 1. it's also not true.
- From 2 and 3, the president is a pumpkin or he is not (not a pumpkin). = He is a pumpkin or he is a pumpkin.
- Therefore, the president truly is a pumpkin.
The general principle is that anything, however silly, follows logically if you accept a contradiction which says that A is not A. Asserting a contradiction such as Giuliani has done is a serious problem.
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My question
Do you agree with me that Giuliani probably did have an important idea behind his badly chosen words? (More than "Yes" or "No" is expected for a good answer to this Yes/No question.)
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Reference
- Gomez, M. (2018, August 19). Giuliani Says ‘Truth Isn’t Truth’ in Defense of Trump’s Legal Strategy. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/us/giuliani-meet-the-press-truth-is-not-truth.html
Writing your summary paragraph - some suggestions.
ReplyDeleteThere are some useful notes on pages 63, "Expanding notes into summaries," and 65 of Skillful.
I suggest that you:
1. read your chosen source at least twice to be sure you understand it well. I need to read it twice, and sometimes three times.
2. Make some very short notes, in your words, of the most important ideas in your chosen article.
3. Organize your notes. That is, decide in what order you want to put them in your summary paragraph.
4. Close your source and write your summary without looking at the source.
5. Check that your summary includes only ideas from the source, none of your own ideas.