My understanding of Paul’s points is that a showing (justification) takes place within a community. His two main examples are a community of legally trained discussants at the appellate court level, and a community of scholars seeking understanding. Persuasion is found in Paul’s account at for example a trial by jury.
There may be a gradient between persuasion and showing that parallels the gradient of shared understandings among discussants, i.e. the extent to which there is or is not a prior community conceptual structure. One thinks of Kuhn’s normal science and scientific revolutions for example.
A showing within a community can be opaque to those outside it in ways that insiders can barely understand. In the April 11th issue of the Economist magazine in the regular “Johnson” column (about language and named for Samuel Johnson the 18th century lexicographer), a judge is quoted as defining reasonable doubt for a jury. I found the judge’s definition to be fairly good, but the Johnson columnist went on to argue rather effectively that it was not very clear for the audience and that “juries often do not understand what they are told to do to fulfill this [the juror’s] role”. This is due in part to “lawyers and judges being “so immersed in their professional argot that they do not realize how impenetrable it can be to outsiders”. Insofar as ‘showings’ try to break of their communities into the broader land, there is persuasion—and teaching.
Paul,
Well said!
Best regards,
Daryl
N. B. Incidentally, I think that the “persuasion” debate on this thread is not off-topic to the OP’s question regarding Web site translation, and I appreciate your note. As AILACT’s mission and materials are extended to a truly global audience, we need to be clear about basic vocabulary. For example, as the persuasion debate (in a single language!) indicates, I suspect that the expression, “critical,” may be mistranslated in a way that departs from AILACT’s scope of interest.
I have no bright ideas about how to audit translated pages beyond multi-lingual volunteers who have a shared understanding of AILACT’s scope and mission, and can rule fair or foul. Web site maintenance would be more involved under such a model, so even modest accuracy in translation may not be a realistic goal. This isn’t an argument against the translation idea, per se, but it may be a reason for translated pages to contain a prominent statement that the English site is the AILACT Web site of record and that it should be preferred wherever possible.
______________________________
________
Daryl Close, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer Science and Philosophy
Heidelberg University
Tiffin, OH 44883
419-448-2281 (office)
419-927-2514 (home)
E-mail: dclose [at] heidelberg [dot] edu
Web Site: http://bright.net/~dclose
In sharing a language, in whatever sense this is required for communication, we share a picture of the world that must, in its large features, be true. It follows that in making manifest the large features of our language, we make manifest the large features of reality.
Donald Davidson, “The Method of Truth in Metaphysics” (1977)
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