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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   3779 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 27, 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 a reread of Watts' The Way of Zen. Still in the preliminaries. The books gets interesting after all the historical stuff.

Paper I'm reading: Goldman's A Causal Theory of Knowing.

Just finished Ender's Game last night. Loved it. Much more mature in tone than I was expecting, and rather sad at times, but compulsively readable throughout.

I'm interested in your review of Speaker for the Dead as you mentioned the tone.

I'd like to read it next.

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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."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


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