Mar 10, 2017 5:54pm
NO, EPRIME ISN’T ENOUGH. BUT IT’S A GOOD START
–“Is E prime *really* that great? I’ve spent a lot of time messing around with shorthand, concept maps, and a bunch of other tools in an effort to improve the quality of my thinking. Is it really as simple as eliminating certain verbs from the way I present ideas?”— A Friend
Eprime provides us with an explanation of WHY we can lie so easily using the verb to be, and by doing so pretend we speak with authority about that which we know little or nothing – or worse, engage in the suggestion, false dichotomies, and obcurantism which constitute the majority of sophomoric philosophical questions.
The grammar (which I posted last week or the week before) plus abandoning the use of the verb to be, plus operational language, plus property in toto, plus limits and full accounting just make it very, very, very difficult to carry on a pretense of knowledge when you don’t possess it.
So no, EPrime isn’t enough, but it’s a whole lot.
There is a difference between writing well, and writing proofs. We are working at writing proofs