[Ads-l] a fool or a liar

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sat Dec 23 00:58:56 UTC 2023


—presumably allowing in each case for both qualities being possessed.  But none of these make inclusivity explicit as did John Stuart Mill (1867:512) for an analogous disjunction: 

If we assert that a man who has acted in a particular way must be either a knave or a fool, we by no means assert, or intend to assert, that
he cannot be both. 

1867. John Stuart Mill. An examination of Sir William Hamilton.s philosophy, 3rd Edition. Longman, London.

(Feel free to insert the name of your favorite political leader as a test case.)

LH

> On Dec 22, 2023, at 6:55 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> 
> The 1943 ex. is now a military cliche'.
> 
> 1749 Philip Skelton _Ophiomaches_ (London: A. Millar) I 254: He...that says
> he loves others better than himself, is either a fool, or a liar.
> 
> 1868 _The World_ (N.Y.C.) (Nov. 6) 1: The man who says he can feel an
> earthquake without fear is either a fool or a liar.
> 
> 1898 in Constance Gardner _Augustus Peabody Gardner_  (Cambridge. Mass.:
> Riverside Press, 1919) 6:   I can’t help being glad the war is over. Any
> man who has been under a hot fire and says he was not afraid is either a
> fool or a liar.
> 
> 1943 _Philadelphia Inquirer_ (May 20) 4:  He says he was scared. He says
> that any man who isn't scared is either a fool or a liar.
> 
> 
> JL
> -- 
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
> 
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