| 1. | Deepity | ||
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Something that sounds profound but intellectually hollow.
Usually has the following characteristics. 1. True but trivial 2. False but logically ill informed. 3. Usually a use-mention error or (UME) Made famous by Daniel Dennett. "Love is just a word" is a deepity.
"God is the God beyond Gods." is a deepity. He just said a deepity. What a deepity. |
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| 2. | deepity | ||
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A proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed. A deepity balances precariously between multiple interpretations, at least one of which is obvious and trivial and at least one of which would be earth-shaking except that it is false. A: Love is just a word.
B: What a bogus deepity. "Love" is just a word; any word is just a word. Love, whatever it is -- whether it is an emotion, a state of being, an evolutionary adaptation, an illusion promoted by romantic novelists -- it is not "just a word." |
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