Sunday, 8 January 2012

Oops!

But suppose there is no argument; suppose that the text is asseverative in manner, perhaps because analytical reasoning has been repudiated in favour of reasoning of some higher kind. If now the text is made hard to follow because of non sequiturs, digressions, paradoxes, impressive-sounding references to Gödel, Wittgenstein, and topology, ‘in’ jokes, trollopy metaphors, and a general determination to keep all vulgar sensibilities at bay, then again we shall have great difficulty in finding out what the author intends us to understand.
— Peter Medawar