Monday 4 July 2016

The Thoughts Of Hume In Systemic Functional Linguistics [10]

Russell (1961: 644-5):
'The sceptic,' he continues (Book I, part iv, sec. ii), 'still continues to reason and believe, even though he asserts that he cannot defend his reason by reason; and by the same rule he must assent to the principle concerning the existence of a body, tho' he cannot pretend by any arguments of philosophy to maintain its veracity … We may well ask, what causes us to believe in the existence of a body?  But 'tis vain to ask, whether there be body or not?  That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.'

Blogger Comments:

From the perspective of SFL theory, beliefs are construals of experience as meaning.  Hume's argument is that these cannot be held with certainty.  SFL theory suggests, through metaphors of modality, that, interpersonally, probability may be a feature of all projected meaning.

I think
that
‘s
true
Modality: probability
Subject
Finite
Complement
Mood
Residue

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