[lbo-talk] Liberals

[// ravi]

On May 31, 2011, at 11:34 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> On May 31, 2011, at 10:25 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
> 
>> Doug cited this untethered hot-air balloon of an obiter-dictum 
>> in response to an observation of mine about the necessary 
>> circularity of definitions (which is not quite the same thing 
>> as a tautology, NB). 
> 
> Not quite the same thing, but not unrelated. When HB says it, it's bombast. When you say it, it sparkles with wit.
> 

I don’t want to get in the middle here, especially since I don’t get the context, but… there is a huge difference between saying that definitions are circular of necessity (a tautology, dare I say :-)), and that “all truths are tautologies”.

In fact the latter is a linguistic turn / formalism (and hence an idiosyncratic and in my mind, wrong-headed) version of the former, yes?

	—ravi