The Philosopher's "Alice in Wonderland"

Holmes, Roger W.

doi:10.2307/4610140

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Commenting on the same passage in Alice Through the Looking Glass , Holmes (1959) argued that there are limits to how we use words, using the example of the challengeable self-description of Soviet-style totalitarian regimes as ‘democratic’. In the 1970s, while they were murdering about one quarter of the Cambodian population, the Khymer Rouge ghoulishly renamed their country ‘Democratic Kampuchea’.…”

Section: Mere Semantics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Humpty Dumpty might have said about property rights – and the need to put them back together again: a response to critics

Hodgson

2015

Journal of Institutional Economics

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This is a response to the useful comments by Allen, Barzel and Cole on Hodgson (2015a) on property rights. One section deals with some misrepresentations by Allen and Barzel. For instance, contrary to one interpretation, Hodgson (2015a) did not accuse the ‘economics of property rights’ of ignoring legal institutions or of making them generally irrelevant. This response further clarifies the standard meaning of rights, showing that it is at variance with usages in the ‘economics of property rights’. The issue of moral motivation, and its relevance for legal compliance, are also elaborated. Some arguments in Hodgson (2015a) have been described by critics as mere semantics, but in response it is argued – contrary to philosophical nominalism – that changes in the meanings of words can be analytically significant, and we should treat traditional meanings more seriously, especially when dealing with other disciplines such as law. (The cryptic reference to Humpty Dumpty comes in here). Before concluding, there is also a brief discussion of different ways of interpreting transaction costs.

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Section: Mere Semantics?mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Humpty Dumpty might have said about property rights – and the need to put them back together again: a response to critics

Hodgson

2015

Journal of Institutional Economics

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‘To Be’ in Twi

Ellis¹,

Boadi²

1969

The Verb ‘Be’ and Its Synonyms

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What's in a Name?

Levi

2008

Philosophical Investigations

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This paper is about the mode of being of names. The paper begins by explaining why the joke is on commentators who see Lewis Carroll's White Knight as applying the use/mention distinction. Then it argues that the real problem with the distinction is that the idea that names are used to mention what they name depends on mistakenly conceiving of language as existing autonomously; and that philosophers have this conception because they fail to appreciate what they are doing when they philosophise about language. This failure also explains why philosophers mistakenly think of any manifestation of a name as a (physical) token.

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The Philosopher's "Alice in Wonderland"

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

What Humpty Dumpty might have said about property rights – and the need to put them back together again: a response to critics

What Humpty Dumpty might have said about property rights – and the need to put them back together again: a response to critics

‘To Be’ in Twi

What's in a Name?

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