Overview of This Unit
Verbal
Strategies of
Supportiveness and
Defensiveness
 Why Argue About
Pointless
Matters?
Why
do we Misunderstand?
Defensiveness and Supportiveness
 Evaluation
 Description
 Control
 Problem
 Strategy
 Neutrality
 Certain
 Superiority
Solving
 Spontaneity
 Empathy
 Provisional
 Equality
Overview of This Unit
 Verbal
Strategies of
Supportiveness and Defensiveness
Why Argue About
Pointless
Matters?
Why do we Misunderstand?
Factual v. Verbal Disputes
 Factual
disputes involve propositions
about facts and are settled only by
getting more factual information
 example:
Dave: Lincoln was born in Indiana. I
learned that in the third grade.
Carl: No, he wasn’t. He was born in
Kentucky. I says so in my college textbook.
Factual Dispute Examples
that two Soviet cosmonauts died in outer
space in 1965
 that John F. Kennedy was shot by Lee
Harvey Oswald
 that the plurality of scientists has the
aquarian astrological sign

Verbal Disputes
 Verbal
disputes involve statements that
people think involve controversies over
objects named by their words, when
they really involve arguments about the
words themselves
 Cannot be resolved by investigating
facts
Statements that Involve
Verbal Disputes
 Analytic
statements, tautologies, and
definitions: the meanings for words
 Contradictions, paradoxes, and
oxymorons
 Attitude axioms
 Metaphysical statements
Analytic Statements,
Tautologies, and Definitions
the meanings
for words
Analytic Statements,
Tautologies, and Definitions
the meanings
for words
statements that
assert that one
term may be
substituted
for another
Analytic, Definition, and Tautology
Proposition Examples
 Samuel
Clemens is Mark Twain
 A yard is three feet long
 The law is the law
 All bachelors are unmarried
Standard for Verbal Disputes
If no sense experience could verify or falsify a
statement, then it is simply not about the
world we experience with our five senses
Contradictions, Paradoxes, and
Oxymorons
 Contradiction:
a statement that
always must be false
 Oxymoron: a contradiction in terms
 Paradox: a statement that declares
itself in contradiction
Contradictions and Oxymorons
statements that must be false due to
their very construction
a noisy quiet
fresh frozen
jumbo shrimp
anti-abortion protestors
original copy
Paradoxes
The
statement
in this
square is
false
Paradoxes
The
statement
in this
square is
false
Paradox of the
Barber
Attitude Axioms
statements that reveal how the speaker
feels about things
Example:
The worst day of fishing is better than the
best day of work
I love what you do for me--Toyota
Metaphysical Statements
 Statements
about things that cannot
be observed in this life
 Examples:
There is a God in heaven
There is life after death
There are seven astral planes
The Jones house is haunted
Some Examples: Verbal or Factual?







Bigfoot exists
My Grandmother is in heaven.
All humans are born equal.
God created Himself.
“Nothing ever dies. Science tells us that. Nothing ever dies,
it just changes form.” -- Shirley MacLaine
Abortion kills babies.
A: “The human embryo, even at the age of 14 days, has
developed fingers and toes. My philosophy teacher told
me that.”
B: “That’s not true. At that point the embryo doesn’t
even have limbs. You can look that up in any
competent biology textbook.”
Overview of This Unit
 Verbal
Strategies of Self Disclosure
 Overcoming Superstitions About
Language
 Why Argue About Pointless Matters?
Why
do we Misunderstand?
Why Are There
Misunderstandings?
We forget that:
1. Language creates a social reality
Whorf-Sapir hypothesis
We forget that:
2. Language is, by its very nature,
incomplete
the hazy claim
ungrammatical incompleteness
the incomplete comparison
the non exclusive claim
weasel words
We forget that:
3. Language reflects culture
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