{"id":2763,"date":"2020-10-22T15:06:32","date_gmt":"2020-10-22T15:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/?p=2763"},"modified":"2020-10-22T15:15:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T15:15:08","slug":"logic-chopping-nitpicking-quibbling-and-such","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2020\/10\/22\/logic-chopping-nitpicking-quibbling-and-such\/","title":{"rendered":"Logic-Chopping, Nitpicking, Quibbling, and such"},"content":{"rendered":"\nI keep returning to Alexander Gray’s, The Socialist Tradition<\/a> (1946) with praise for his scholarship and with reproval for his analyses and emotive disparagements.\n<\/P>

\nAs I was reading his account of Robert Owen (pp. 197-217), I came upon the following passage: “Perhaps those parts of his arguments which rest on general humanitarian considerations, rather than on logic-chopping discussions on Man’s will, make a stronger appeal to our generation, if only because here Owen is more universally human.” p. 208.\n<\/P>

\nI want to reflect on this kind of criticism which is expressed by the phrase “logic-chopping”<\/a> and its near synonym “nitpicking”<\/a> or “quibbling<\/a>.”This is criticism of something being done in excess of what is appropriate to the context. And a person who engages in excessive criticism is a “pedant.”<\/a> And one who is oblivious to a need for any analysis at all and the need to make appropriate distinctions is a “philistine.”<\/a>\n[I have put links for the meaning of these words.]\n

\nWhat is too much or too little depends on the context.\n

\nI personally have been constantly accused of “nitpicking” because I — almost invariably — ask: “What do you mean?”\nAnd I usually ask for the meaning of abstract words which have the suffix “-ism” (and for most political terms\nfor parties and so-called “schools”), but also for the meaning of — what seem to me to be — names of fictions, like “God.”\n<\/p>

\nI suppose the consequence of stirring up controversy in inappropriate contexts is being forced (in a metaphoric way of speaking) to drink hemlock.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I keep returning to Alexander Gray’s, The Socialist Tradition (1946) with praise for his scholarship and with reproval for his analyses and emotive disparagements. As I was reading his account of Robert Owen (pp. 197-217), I came upon the following passage: “Perhaps those parts of his arguments which rest on general humanitarian considerations, rather than … Continue reading “Logic-Chopping, Nitpicking, Quibbling, and such”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-escaping-bullshit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2763"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2767,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2763\/revisions\/2767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}