'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Thursday, December 24, 2009

on certainty 204


204. Giving grounds, however, justifying evidence, comes to an end; – but the end is not certain propositions’ striking us immediately as true, i.e., it is not a kind of seeing on our part; it is our acting, which lies at the bottom of the language-game.



giving grounds – justifying evidence –

comes to an end –

when you stop doing it

people act – with or without –

playing these ‘language games’

action shows –

these language games –

to be irrelevant –

where they are relevant –

is in the business of persuasion

these are games of rhetoric


© greg t. charlton. 2009.