The Grice Club

Welcome

The Grice Club

The club for all those whose members have no (other) club.

Is Grice the greatest philosopher that ever lived?

Search This Blog

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Whether or not

"whether" then draws a distinction.

One usually can't say

"whether it's hot".

One rather says

"whether it's hot or cold"

or one can say

"whether or not it's hot".

That is,

"whether" requires the "or".

"Not", now, is a stand-in if you don't want to make the disjunction explicit.

"Whether or not" can be used as a "pleonasm", with true redundancy:

"We'll go whether or not it's hot or cold".

----

No comments:

Post a Comment