Telling, Showing, Showing off

Showing, Telling and Seeing. Metaphor and â•œPoeticâ•š Language

Theorists often associate certain “poetic” qualities with metaphor – most especially, producing an open-ended, holistic perspective which is evocative, imagistic and affectively-laden. I argue that, on the one hand, non-cognitivists are wrong to claim that metaphors only produce such perspectives: like ordinary literal speech, they also serve to undertake claims and other speech acts with propo...

Final Project: Altruism or Just Showing Off

Showing, Telling and Seeing, Metaphor and ``Poetic'' Language

Theorists often associate certain “poetic” qualities with metaphor – most especially, producing an open-ended, holistic perspective which is evocative, imagistic and affectively-laden. I argue that, on the one hand, non-cognitivists are wrong to claim that metaphors only produce such perspectives: like ordinary literal speech, they also serve to undertake claims and other speech acts with propo...

Showing Off, Handicap Signaling, and the Evolution of Men’s Work

Displays are a form of communication, providing information about an individual, often in a widely observable forum. In order for a display to be worth performing, there must be an audience. In order for observers to bother paying attention, it must benefit them to do so. According to costly signaling theory,1,2,4–6 the observer benefit for paying attention is the information about an otherwise...

The Saying/Showing Distinction in Early Wittgenstein and Its Implications

 Jafar Morvarid[1]  In this paper, I shall try to clarify the saying/showing distinction and to emphasize the role of this distinction in constructing a coherent picture of language and the world. In order to properly understand the differences between the sayable and the showable, I will throw light on the limits of language and the world. I will explain why it is impossible to say the showab...