• About

Questions Are Power

Questions Are Power

Tag Archives: philosophy

ChatGPT rearranges my essay “The Role of Rhetoric” by AN

27 Wednesday Aug 2025

Posted by Andrew Nightingale in AI summaries of Nightingale108

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

consciousness, history, philosophy, religion, science

originally published at https://lapageblanche.com/le-depot/auteur-e-s-index-i/38-andrew-nightingale/2-le-role-de-la-rethorique

The Role of Rhetoric (Aphoristic Revision)

The parallel postulate was never necessary, only asserted.
Euclid held it back as long as he could, building a Neutral Geometry true everywhere. But in the end he chose—persuaded by coherence, by tradition—that only one line runs parallel through a given point. This was less proof than persuasion.

That choice shows how we think.
The crystallization of intuition into formal mathematics is a rhetorical process. The vague becomes exact, the fluid hardens into proof. We pretend logic alone dictates the result, but behind every axiom stands persuasion.

Non-Euclidean geometry proved the point. More than one parallel line can exist. Triangles on a sphere can have three right angles. The Earth itself gave evidence, but we preferred the frame that made space measurable, quantifiable, ours. Even science, in claiming territory, leans on rhetoric.

Rhetoric is not an ornament of thought but its orientation. It decides which truths are admitted, which distances are counted, which realities are named. To prove is also to persuade. To formalize is to crystallize choice into necessity.

Aristotle called rhetoric an art of persuasion; I call it the art of orientation.
It stands at the border where mathematics becomes possible, where science borrows from poetry. Rhetoric guards poetry, translating its openness into form. It shows us that truth, even when written in symbols, is always chosen—always persuaded into being.

Vagueness is Essential

10 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by Andrew Nightingale in Questions in Logic

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

linguistics, logic, meaning, ontology, philosophy, semantics

Vagueness is not a matter of semantics. It is a problem that troubles the basic assertion that, as our old friend Berty Russell asserted as an axiom in the Principlia Mathematica, "Everything that is, is." The basics are a very interesting place to stay. We would like to say this is a basic and acceptable assertion, and it turns out to not be basic at all. In fact, no subject is elementary, and also every subject is elementary. 
 
Channell and Rowland argue that vagueness has pragmatic usefulness: "For language to be fully useful, therefore, in the sense of being able to describe all of human beings' experience, it must incorporate built-in flexibility. This flexibility resides, in part, in its capacity for vagueness" (p201 Channell 1994) Dr. Channell outlines various views of where vagueness comes from, from the difference between the "same idea" in different minds (Fodor 1977 in Channell 1994), to language (Peirce 1902 in Channell 1994), to physical reality (Russell 1923). Vagueness is found discussed in logic (Lakoff 1972 in Channell 1994) where it is argued (along with Russell) that "true" and "false" are vague, and so classical logic could be modified..." (p66 Nightingale 2019)

"[i]t is perfectly obvious, since colours form a continuum, that there are shades of colour concerning which we shall be in doubt whether to call them red or not, not because we are ignorant of the meaning of the word "red," but because it is a word the extent of whose application is essentially doubtful." (1923 Russell as quoted in Nightingale 2019, p66).

"The word "red" is vague in this respect because there are borderline cases where it is not clear whether or not we should call the case "red". Russell says "essentially doubtful" because this uncertainty is essential, in the sense of being a part of the nature of red. One deception here is in asserting that the "continuum" is a perfectly precise reality that can be expressed numerically. This renders vagueness a kind of error; without a perfectly known continuum underneath our words, vagueness is not error but has a reality of its own. Does the continuum suffer from vagueness?...
Peirce claimed that another way to describe generality is where the Law of Excluded Middle ("A or ~A is always true") does not hold. This makes sense because normally, the LEM decides which of "A or ~A" is true (even if we don't know which is decided, it asserts that "out there" it is decided.) When the LEM does not apply "A or ~A" is left undecided, which allows for a generalization on "A or ~A", you can choose which. However the claim that something can be essentially uncertain is directly against the LEM." (p66-68 Nightingale 2019)

I mean to say that reifying vagueness proves the LEM is false, in general. (The ideas of general and of vague are intimately connected) Russell asserted "everything that is, is" in order to "prove" the LEM. And here I am arguing against the LEM, which would also be against "everything that is, is" What makes red red? In this question i mean to be vague between term red and the actual red. If everything that is depends on other things to be, there is a certain spaciousness to Being, an undefined vagueness between Being and Space.

Featured

Posted by Andrew Nightingale in Questions in Logic

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

art, buddhism, philosophy, poetry, science, writing

A master of lies... He will know what kind and mode of deception is taking place at any moment set before him. He will know the lies of magic are the same as the lies of science. He must have detailed knowledge to the exactitude of a mathematician on why mathematics is a falsehood. A master of lies is most persuasive, and he knows how to hide his persuasion. He knows what purpose his lie serves, whether good or evil, beautiful or ugly or simply complex in how truth and lies are woven into the fabric of space-time.
 
He has found the crack in the wholeness of his being, from where he will shine his lights and darknesses. He will know why he shines a darkness instead of a light, what the dangers are and how to avoid them. It is not mastery if his lies cause him harm. In other words, mastery over lies is not different from a mastery of truth.

And a so-called master of truth only requires blind faith. Waving the flag of truth, he will be insulted if called a liar, as if lies were not integral to our existence on earth. He is blind to his own lies and manipulations, believing them to be right and true.

"Errat ergo sum" -St. Augustine

Come with me, I will guide you through the nightmare land of lies. And when you have crossed this valley of shadow, you will have a mastery that is more valuable than any fact.
Newer posts →

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • March 2026
  • February 2026
  • January 2026
  • December 2025
  • November 2025
  • October 2025
  • August 2025
  • July 2025
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • December 2024
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • July 2024
  • June 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • March 2024
  • February 2024
  • January 2024
  • December 2023
  • October 2023
  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • July 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • December 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • January 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • April 2016
  • June 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • November 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014

Categories

  • AI summaries of Nightingale108
  • Questions in Logic
  • Questions in Mathematics
  • The more technical stuff

Meta

  • Create account
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Questions Are Power
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Questions Are Power
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar