ext_6327 ([identity profile] http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/) wrote in [personal profile] alixtii 2008-02-23 04:00 pm (UTC)

So to address your specific instance.

You seem to be starting with the definition 'a text is something that can be analysed with the specific tools X, Y and Z'. You have then said 'Everything in the world can be analysed with the tools X, Y and Z' and hence you have made the conclusion 'therefore everything is a text'.

But the important fact is not that everything is text, it is that everything can be analysed with the tools X, Y and Z - that does not change the definition of 'text', it just shows that the original statement was not the accurate definition of 'text', but merely a fact about text. The proper definition of text is 'a text is something that can be analysed with tools X, Y and Z, but also has the defining properties L, M, and N.' So your next stage needs to be to find out what L, M and N are, otherwise you are left believing that everything in the world is a text, which is unlikely to be true. It might be true, nothing in the logic so far has disproved it, but it is unlikely.

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