16.4
526. If someone were to look at an English
pillar-box and say “I am sure that it’s red”, we should have to suppose that he
was colour-blind, or believe he had no mastery of English and knew the correct
name for the colour in some other language.
If neither was the case we should not quite
understand him.
what this example shows is just how
irrelevant and frankly ridiculous the claim of surety – is
we do understand him – because our language
and our way of life is saturated with this rhetoric –
we have to deal with this rubbish all the
time –and often when it is not so obviously vacuous
and if we are dealing effectively with it –
we simply cancel it out of our considerations –
and indeed try and get others to see what a
waste of breath it is
