Citations:deepity

English citations of deepity

profound-seeming but superficial equivocation

• 2000 October 23, Don Ross, Dennett's Philosophy: A Comprehensive Assessment, Cambridge: MIT Press, →ISBN, →OL, page 171:

  The air of paradox, however, is merely what Dennett calls (in conversation) a “deepity,” a claim that appears profound but is in fact a superficial equivocation. ... The deepity of unseeming seemings dissolves when one considers the unstated temporal dimension of all judgments, including judgments of appearance and reality.

• 2009, Dennett, Daniel, The Evolution of Confusion speech, American Atheists International conference

  A deepity is a proposition that seems to be profound because it is actually logically ill-formed. It has (at least) two readings and balances precariously between them. On one reading it is true but trivial. And on another reading it is false, but would be earth-shattering if true.

• 2009 November 27, Chris Schoen, “Deepity Structure”, in Underverse‎^[1], retrieved 2012-05-31:

  And yet, no clearer example of a deepity will you find than the assertion that math is an instinct.

• 2009 November 27, Greta Christina, “Deepities on Parade: "Oh My God" Reviewed”, in Greta Christina's Blog‎^[2], retrieved 2012-05-31:

  And this abdication of the responsibility to understand reality, this utter dismissal of reality in favor of pretty stories and profound-sounding deepities, this casual shrugging off of the question "What is real?" as if it were irrelevant trivia, is probably the thing I find most maddening about religious belief.

• 2010 December 1, Michael Gray, “Re: DNA”, in alt.talk.creationism‎^[3] (Usenet), message-ID <1ovbf6pkiccortm3v776im5bn8q6ujjlqq@4ax.com>:

  Mind if I steal that deepity as a 'sig'?

• 2011 April 26, Stephen Law, Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked into an Intellectual Black Hole‎^[4], Amherst: Prometheus Books, →ISBN, →OL:

  Another recipe for generating Pseudoprofundity, identified by philosopher Daniel Dennett, is the deepity. A deepity involves saying something with two meanings—one trivially true, the other profound sounding but false or nonsensical. Dennett illustrates this with the expression “Love is just a word.”

• 2011 December 18, Joseph Polanik, “[analytic] The Mysterious Identity Relation”, in fa.analytic-philosophy‎^[5] (Usenet), message-ID <fa.mFqedYrRNgC4ktmNDci499gG/Ck@ifi.uio.no>:

  problematic is your endless equivocation between the two aspects of this deepity. I am not contesting the interpretation of this deepity that has only trivial consequences.