Values in Speaking

Abstract

I am addressing you this evening in a somewhat unfamiliar theme: that of “logical values” or “values in speaking.” I do so since the points I want to raise come up very constantly in contemporary discussion, and yet are seldom made the object of explicit reflection. There are, it is plain, a large number of qualities which appeal to us in our utterances, whether in the setting forth of our notions in words, or in the weaving of such words into sentences. And they may be said to appeal to us in a peculiar manner, and to satisfy a special set of interests in us, which we may group together as the “logical side” of our nature. Thus most people would say that clarity, relevance, coherence, solid significance and simplicity were merits in speaking, and that so also was truthful conformity to the facts of experience, whether in their general outline or their concrete detail. And everyone would admit readily that such excellences “belonged together,” that they were somehow akin, and that they differed profoundly from such virtues in speaking as poetic felicity, practical helpfulness, or moral and religious inspiration. And most people would also be willing to say, with a great deal of obscurity and most puzzling conviction, that the appeal of such qualities wasn't “merely momentary and personal,” but had something “solid” and “universal” about it, that a man would be foolish not to value such qualities, and that he couldn't help valuing them if he only thought of them sufficiently. And we should recommend such qualities to the approval of others with an air of earnestness and authority, setting them on a level, in this respect, with those other excellences that are called “ethical” and “aesthetic.” But while we could back our recommendation in the last two types of case with a great deal of systematic doctrine, built up in centuries of reflection, we should have little to bring forward in the former case, since the excellences that I want to call “logical,” though often acknowledged, have seldom been made the objects of systematic reflection. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the “true” has generally been ranged alongside of the “good” and the “beautiful” as a species of “ultimate value.”