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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   3501 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 4, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

Still on Comte's A General View of Positivism. Progress is slow but he has my attention. His Positive Philosophy seems considerably more complicated.

Paper I happen to be reading: Leeson's The Invisible Hook: The Law and Economics of Pirate Tolerance.

Stalled out on "Democracy in America". Its not that it lacks insight or is badly written, its just...a long winded nineteenth century book, i guess? And it seems like it may suffer from its success, being one of those books whose key points have already passed into the broader culture in some way.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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