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2 ideas

19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Rhetoric is built into language, so it cannot be stripped from philosophy [Bowie]
     Full Idea: The attempt to rid philosophy of rhetoric falls prey precisely to that fact that what is involved in rhetoric is inherent in what is built into all natural languages by their genesis in the real historical world.
     From: Andrew Bowie (Introduction to German Philosophy [2003], 2 'Hamann')
     A reaction: Rhetoric can range from charming to bullying, and it is the latter which is the problem. The underlying issue is dogma versus dialectic. Some analytic philosophers have a good shot at being non-rhetorical.
19. Language / F. Communication / 3. Denial
We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
     Full Idea: The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A.
     From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
     A reaction: [compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role).