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Truism
A truism is a claim that is so obvious or self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning, except as a reminder or as a rhetorical or literary device, and is the opposite of a falsism. In philosophy, a sentence which asserts incomplete truth conditions for a proposition may be regarded as a truism. An example of such a sentence would be "Under appropriate conditions, the sun rises." Without contextual supporta statement of what those appropriate conditions arethe sentence is true but incontestable. Lapalissades, such as "If he were not dead, he would still be alive", are considered to be truisms. See also * Aphorism * Axiom * Cliché * Contradiction * Dictum * Dogma * Figure of speech * Maxim * Moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ... * Platitude * S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lapalissade
A lapalissade is an obvious truth—i.e. a truism or tautology—which produces a comical effect. It is derived from the name Jacques de la Palice, and the word is used in several languages.Georges Lebouc, ''2500 noms propres devenus communs''p. 389/ref> Origin La Palice's epitaph reads:Michel Chabanne (14 June 2007), comment oEncyclopédie des Expressions: Une vérité de La Palice / Une lapalissade. Accessed 15 April 2009. : :("Here lies the Seigneur de La Palice: If he weren't dead, he would still be envied.") These words were misread (accidentally or intentionally) as "''...il ſerait eraitencore en vie''" ("...he would still be alive"), where the long s aids in the confusion. In the 16th century this misreading was incorporated into a popular satirical song, and in time many other variants developed, including ("... that two days before his death / he was still quite alive") and ("... and when he was stark naked / he didn't wear a shirt"). In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cliché
A cliché ( or ; ) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or literal and figurative language, figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being bland or uninteresting. In phraseology, the term has taken on a more technical meaning, referring to an Phraseme#Clichés, expression imposed by conventionalized linguistic usage. The term, which is typically pejorative, is often used in modern culture for an action or idea that is expected or predictable, based on a prior event. Clichés may or may not be true. Some are stereotypes, but some are simply truisms and facts. Clichés often are employed for comedy, comedic effect, typically in fiction. Most phrases now considered clichéd originally were regarded as striking but have lost their force through overuse. The French poet Gérard de Nerval once said, "The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile." ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Platitude
A platitude is a statement that is seen as trite, meaningless, or prosaic, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The statement may be true, but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use as a thought-terminating cliché. Platitudes often take the form of tautologies, e.g., "it is what it is", making them appear vacuously true. But the phrase is used to mean "there is no way of changing it", which is no longer a tautology: "Structuring the sentiment as a tautology allows it to appear inescapable." At the same time, some phrases that have become platitudes may provide useful moral guidance, such as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Others, though widely trivialized, may be thought-provoking, such as "Be the change you wish to see in the world". Etymology The word is a borrowing from the French compound ''platitude'', from ''plat'' 'flat' + ''-(i)tude'' '-ness', thus 'flatness'. The figurative sense is first attested in French in 16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-evidence
In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is a proposition that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof, and/or by ordinary human reason. Some epistemologists deny that any proposition can be self-evident. For most others, one's belief that oneself is conscious and possesses free will are offered as examples of self-evidence. However, one's belief that someone else is conscious or has free will are not epistemically self-evident. The following proposition is often said to be self-evident: "A finite whole is greater than, or equal to, any of its parts". A logical argument for a self-evident conclusion would demonstrate only an ignorance of the purpose of persuasively arguing for the conclusion based on one or more premises that differ from it (see ' and begging the question). Analytic propositions It is sometimes said that a self-evident proposition is one whose denial is self-contradictory. It is also sometimes said that an anal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dogma
Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam, the positions of a philosopher or philosophical school, such as Stoicism, and political belief systems such as fascism, socialism, progressivism, liberalism, and conservatism. In the pejorative sense, dogma refers to enforced decisions, such as those of aggressive political interests or authorities. More generally, it is applied to some strong belief that its adherents are not willing to discuss rationally. This attitude is named as a dogmatic one, or dogmatism, and is often used to refer to matters related to religion, though this pejorative sense strays far from the formal sense in which it is applied to religious belief. The pejorative sense is not limited to theistic attitudes alone and is often used with respect to political or ph ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tautology (rhetoric)
In literary criticism and rhetoric, a tautology is a statement that repeats an idea using near-synonymous morphemes, words or phrases, effectively "saying the same thing twice". Tautology and pleonasm are not consistently differentiated in literature. Like pleonasm, tautology is often considered a fault of style when unintentional. Intentional repetition may emphasize a thought or help the listener or reader understand a point. Sometimes logical tautologies like "Boys will be boys" are conflated with language tautologies, but a language tautology is not inherently true, while a logical tautology always is. Etymology The word was coined in Koine Greek from ('the same') plus ('word' or 'idea'), and transmitted through 3rd-century Latin and French . It first appeared in English in the 16th century. The use of the term logical tautology was introduced in English by Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synthetic Proposition
Synthetic may refer to: Science * Synthetic biology * Synthetic chemical or compound, produced by the process of chemical synthesis * Synthetic elements, chemical elements that are not naturally found on Earth and therefore have to be created in experiments * Synthetic organic compounds synthetic chemical compounds based on carbon (organic compounds). * Synthetic peptide * Synthetic population * Synthetic population (biology) Industry * Synthetic fuel * Synthetic oil * Synthetic marijuana * Synthetic diamond * Synthetic fibers, cloth or other material made from other substances than natural (animal, plant) materials Other * Synthetic position, a concept in finance * Synthetic-aperture radar, a type or radar * Analytic–synthetic distinction, in philosophy * Synthetic language in linguistics, inflected or agglutinative languages * Synthetic intelligence a term emphasizing that true intelligence expressed by computing machines is not an imitation or "artificial." * Sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moral
A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A moral is a lesson in a story or real life. Finding morals As an example of an explicit maxim, at the end of Aesop's fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, in which the plodding and determined tortoise won a race against the much-faster yet extremely arrogant hare, the stated moral is "slow and steady wins the race". However, other morals can often be taken from the story itself; for instance, that arrogance or overconfidence in one's abilities may lead to failure or the loss of an event, race, or contest. The use of stock characters is a means of conveying the moral of the story by eliminating the complexity of personality and depicting the issues arising in the interplay between the characters, enabling the writer to generate a clear m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maxim (saying)
Maxim or Maksim may refer to: Entertainment * ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine ** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition ** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition * Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sirius Satellite Radio *''Maxim'', a fictional ship in the manga and anime series ''One Piece'' *Maxim, the hero of the video game '' Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals'' and its remake, '' Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals'' Literature and language *A species of adage, aphorism, or saying that expresses a general moral rule, especially a philosophical maxim * ''Maxims'' (Old English poems), examples of gnomic poetry *'' Maximes'' (1665–78) of François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) Organizations * Mary Maxim, craft and needlework mail-order company in Canada *Maxim Brewery, brewing company in England * Maxim's Catering, chain of caterers, restaurants, and fast food shops in Hong Kong * Maxim Healthcare Services, medical staffing and home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Figure Of Speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from straightforward language use or Denotation, literal meaning to produce a rhetorical or intensified effect (emotionally, aesthetically, intellectually, etc.). In the distinction between literal and figurative language, figures of speech constitute the latter. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into ''scheme (linguistics), schemes'', which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and ''trope (literature), tropes'', where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify. An example of a scheme is a polysyndeton: the repetition of a conjunction before every element in a list, whereas the conjunction typically would appear only before the last element, as in "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"—emphasizing the danger and number of animals more than the Prose, prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as someth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contradiction
In traditional logic, a contradiction involves a proposition conflicting either with itself or established fact. It is often used as a tool to detect disingenuous beliefs and bias. Illustrating a general tendency in applied logic, Aristotle's law of noncontradiction states that "It is impossible that the same thing can at the same time both belong and not belong to the same object and in the same respect." In modern formal logic and type theory, the term is mainly used instead for a ''single'' proposition, often denoted by the falsum symbol \bot; a proposition is a contradiction if false can be derived from it, using the rules of the logic. It is a proposition that is unconditionally false (i.e., a self-contradictory proposition). This can be generalized to a collection of propositions, which is then said to "contain" a contradiction. History By creation of a paradox, Plato's '' Euthydemus'' dialogue demonstrates the need for the notion of ''contradiction''. In the ensuing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dictum
In legal writing, a (Latin 'something that has been said'; plural ) is a statement made by a court. It may or may not be binding as a precedent. United States In United States legal terminology, a ''dictum'' is a statement of opinion considered authoritative (although not binding), given the recognized authority of the person who pronounced it. There are multiple subtypes of , although due to their overlapping nature, legal practitioners in the U.S. colloquially use to refer to any statement by a court the scope of which extends beyond the issue before the court. in this sense are not binding under the principle of , but tend to have a strong persuasive effect, by virtue of having been stated in an authoritative decision, or by an authoritative judge, or both. These subtypes include: * : A personal or individual dictum that is expressed by the judge who delivers an opinion but that is not necessarily concurred in by the whole court and that is not essential to the disposi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
