May
06, 2017 Saturday
Bedtime
Story
Tautology in the Art of Discourse
In
the art of discourse, especially when it comes to persuasion (or rhetoric),
tautology is a form of logical argument that is made by repeating the same
assertion using different phrases.
Before
I go into tautology, a brief digression into discourse is essential.
Discourse
in general denotes any kind of written or spoken conversations.
In
linguistics, it has a more rigid and formal meaning.
Discourse
in linguistics is a generalized conceptualization of conversation in which its
semiotics are separately analyzed.
Semiotics
in turn is the study of the process of meaning-making which essentially is the
method by which we apes construe, understand or make sense of life events,
relationships and self.
Study
of discourse is in a way the study of human apes themselves and how they
perceive themselves and the world around them.
Tautology
is merely one of the “tricks” they deploy in their discourses to convince and
even fool the opposite party in accepting their personal point of view and
thereby benefitting their personal interest.
The
writer or the speaker strives to assert his argument to be logically
irrefutable notwithstanding the fact that the argument lacks evidence or valid
reasoning.
In
a way, tautology is repetition of same ideas using different words.
It
contains an unnecessary redundancy (this itself could be a tautology –
unnecessary redundancy, get it?).
One
of the most spoken tautologies that you will hear is “Repeat that again”.
Another
common tautology may be “Professor Dawkins is my teacher and I am his student”.
This
is tautology when it comes to rhetoric and arguments in common language.
Tautology
when it comes to formal or propositional logic has a completely different
meaning.
In
logic, a tautology is a formula that is true in every possible interpretation.
It
is a statement that excludes no logical possibilities and in a sense, it is
true in all possible worlds.
In
a manner of speaking, it comes out as a necessary truth.
Both
Gottlob Frege and Ludwig Wittgenstein (in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)
had dealt on the subject of tautology in relation to logical truths.
A
simple example of a logical tautology in ordinary English would be this:
When
you buy a lottery ticket, you can win it or lose it.
Nobody
will disagree with this statement; so much so that it need be even stated.
We
shall take up the concept of tautology in formal logic in the nights to come.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.in/
Good night mon ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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