I was working on this essay before Joe Biden withdrew from the next US Presidential elections and before Donald Trump nearly got assassinated, so it reflects the situation back then. But, before I continue to assess the second half of their, I guess by now, infamous first and last debate of the upcoming elections, I do have to point out that while you could argue that Trump won the debate, considering that Biden subsequently withdrew from the race, it might have been a Pyrrhic victory for him. I’ll return to that point later on, because that’s not really what I wanted to cover in this essay.
So, as I pointed out in the previous essay, if you thought the first half of the debate was difficult to follow, the second half, what I’m about to cover here, in this essay, was just next level difficult to follow. It was so, so all over the place, basically ignoring the set format, that it was like … how to even put it … well not a debate. While I like a more free flowing conversation, this wasn’t a conversation, yet it wasn’t a discussion, nor a debate either. It so little sense by the end that … well … I’ll return that later on.
To make more sense of the second half of the debate, if we can even call it that, I’ll be once again relying on H. P. Grice’s Cooperative Principle, aka CP. The gist of it is that people expect other people to be cooperative, even if they know that people aren’t always cooperative. To be more specific, people are expected to follow four categories or maxims, which quantity, quality, relation and manner.
I have explained those four in great detail in previous essays and covered them again in sufficient detail in the previous essay, so I won’t do that here. That said, I’ll still summarize each of them, just in case you don’t know all that and feel a bit lazy. So, assume you are talking with someone. What you say and what the other person says can be assessed in terms of quantity, i.e., how much is said by you or the other person. To make sure you get the point across, you mustn’t say too little, nor too much. It can also be assessed in terms of quality, i.e., whether what you or the other person says can be understood as being truthful. It’s not that it is true, we don’t care about that, but rather whether you or the other person believe it to be true, that you have the necessary evidence to back it up, so that it isn’t whimsical. In terms of relation, what you or the other person says can be assessed for whether it stays on topic. Finally, we can also assess what’s been said in terms of manner, inspecting whether the person in question is trying to be obscure or ambiguous or, conversely, avoiding that.
Now, none of this is clear cut. Often it is, but it can be difficult to assess as it’s all context bound. The can also overlap to some extent, by which I mean that going on and on about something may also be off topic, so that it concerns quantity and relation, to this or that extent. Then there’s also opting for one, instead of the other, so that, like in some cases, you talk too much or too little and/or go off topic, failing quantity and/or relation, just so that you aren’t caught lying, failing quality. You might, for example, keep it so brief or go on and on, so that it’s difficult to assess whether someone is making things up. They might also go off topic just so that they don’t have to answer a question.
Also, I can’t stress it enough that, in Gricean pragmatics, quality is not about truth or falsity, so assessing it is not a matter of assessing something as simply true or false. You have to let go of such naïve conception of reality. Instead, what you assess is whether something is believable or not. To be more precise, you address whether something is happy or unhappy, i.e., felicitous or infelicitous, as J. L. Austin explains that in ‘How to Do Things with Words’.
The reason here for that terminological change is clear. There is no truth, as such, as language is always, yes, always performative, as Austin ends up pointing out in the book. Language is therefore never descriptive. We are in the habit of thinking that we are capable of description, explaining that there’s this and/or that we, for example, see, but that explanation of whatever it is that we see is in itself predefined. How so? Well, what we say about the world is our story or theory of it, not the world itself. It’s basically a system of classification that is, well, grounded on nothing. A good example of this is how colors aren’t the same between languages, so that you get all kinds of mismatches between them, as explained by Louis Hjelmslev his book ‘Prolegomena to a Theory of Language’. If language was descriptive, if it was capable of allowing us to decipher truth, we wouldn’t have languages, as Friedrich Nietzsche (62) reminds us in ‘Truth and Falsity in an Extra-Moral Sense’.
I’ve come to dislike words like describe, description and descriptive for that reason. You could still use them. You don’t have to be anal or pedantic about that. The words themselves aren’t the problem. I could still say I’m describing something. Yes. But I’d have to emphasize, if not insist that I’m then doing that in terms of felicity or infelicity, not in terms of truth or falsity. So, yeah, these days I just find it easier to avoid using the word, to avoid making people think that I’m talking in terms of truth or falsity.
This is the same thing when I express something as appearing to be, that this and/or that appears to be the case, as opposed saying that something is, that it is the case. To be candid, I often say that something is the case, instead of it appearing to be the case, even though, in my view, nothing ever is the case. This is because it is so, so tiresome to specify that, that in my view everythings appears to be … instead of being …, as you might have guessed. People may also think that I’m being a dick about it, like one upping them, so I try to avoid that. To be clear though, if I need to specify that, to make that point, I will insist on that, that while minute in speech or writing, the difference between to be or to appear to be is massive. It’s a game changer. You go from that truth/falsity to felicity/infelicity.
But what is felicity? When is something felicituous? Well, I think Austin’s (42-43) example on judgment is fitting here. So, when you have a judge who says someone is ‘guilty’, the judge sincerely believes that, according to the evidence, that person is ‘guilty’ of whatever it is that the person was accused of. The judge does not know whether the person is guilty. If the judge did know the person is guilty, then no evidence would be needed. That would be a show trial. Everything that happens in a court of law would be there, in place, to make it appear that the judgment is evidence based and not simply decided in advance, even though it is decided in advance. The notion of sincerity is also important here as the judgment may still be unjustified or wrong, as he (43) points out. People do get fined and they do serve time for things that they haven’t done. Sometimes this gets rectified, for example when new evidence surfaces, and sometimes it doesn’t. If the judgment is subsequently reversed, we consider the judgment to have been unhappy or infelicituous, but, as emphasized by him (43), that does not make the judgment to have been that way, unhappy or infelicituous when it was made, inasmuch it was sincere. So, in other words, in light of the evidence that is available now, we may consider something to have been unjust or wrong, sure, but, in light of the evidence that was available at the time, it wasn’t.
In any case, that’s very close to how Grice explains the category or maxim of quality in ‘Logic of Conversation’. He (46) is very clear on that, noting in the indented definitions or submaxims that, it’s about “not say[ing] what you believe to be false” and “not say[ing] that for which you lack adequate evidence.” Note how in both cases it’s really about sincerity.
So, if you ask me where our mutual friend went, having just talked with that friend, and I tell you what I believe to be the case, where the friend went, on the basis of that conversation or my understanding of the situation, like where that person might have gone if it was not covered in the conversation, I’m not lying to you, regardless of whether that person went there or not. I’m being sincere. That said, I then have to specify to you that it’s my take on that, that I’m basically making an educated guess, based on what I know about our mutual friend, and not on evidence.
Our mutual friend might also have said something to me just to mislead you. If I believe that the person said something false to me, perhaps so that I end up misleading you, I should point that out to you. I should therefore say that the person said this, but that I believe the person only said that because the person won’t be there, because the person doesn’t want to see you, for whatever reason the person might have for not wanting to see you.
This is, of course, way more clear cut if our mutual friend went somewhere, told me that and I have no reason to believe that the person would mislead me, you or both of us. I can tell you that this happened, there and then, so go there and you find our mutual friend.
Okay, maybe you can simply call or message our mutual friend, there’s that. It’s kind of pointless to ask me something you could ask that person. But, to make that made up example work, let’s just assume that you’ve already tried that and that you could reach the person. That could happen.
So, the focus is, once again, on Biden. I stopped the assessment when things started to get pretty heated. The next topic is the attack on the US Capitol, following the previous elections.
Right, how do I even begin dealing with this. The problem with this topic, the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, is that Trump goes off topic, immediately. The moderator points this out, only for Trump to sidestep the issue, directing the blame on others. Biden then gets to have his say. Nothing spectacular there. Then Trump continues, once again going off topic. This also happens in the follow-up question directed at Trump. He does actually answer the question, but he answers in a manner that doesn’t really tell anything to anyone. Then he goes after Biden, even though it has nothing to do with the question, nor the topic. This results in further back and forth. What Biden says is largely cooperative, inasmuch it is considered to be part of that back and forth, going after your opponent, but it is, undoubtedly just off topic. That said, it’s kind of hard to blame him for that, considering how far off topic the debate was at that point.
Biden is then put on the spot to answer the question that pertains to Trumps popularity. He answers the question immediately, followed up by explaining why he thinks that millions of voters, those likely to support Trump, are going to act against their own best interests if they vote for Trump. The questions and the topic, Trump as a threat to democracy, is rather broad, so it’s rather easy to stay on topic or, conversely, it’s kind of hard to end up saying something that can be considered irrelevant. He could, however, be understood as failing the maxim of quality, considering that he relies on something that, according to PolitiFact, cannot be verified, i.e., hearsay, when stating that Trump had once said that Adolf Hitler did also good things. Biden also states that Trump approved (neo-)Nazis following the Charlottesville Protests, which isn’t strictly speaking true as Trump was, in fact, approving some people who were either in favor or against the removal of Confederate Statues, as pointed out by AP and PolitiFact.
Following the commercial break, Biden is given the chance to respond first. This time the question and the topic has to do black voters and how might not be satisfied with Biden’s administration. PolitiFact notes that while Biden is correct to state that black unemployment is record low, but he takes too much credit. The situation was not considerably worse under the Trump administation, so it’s a bit over the top to give the impression that things haven’t been this good in a very long time.
The next topic, climate change, and the related question, what to do about it, was directed at Trump, yet, Biden was the one to address it first. Trump didn’t adress it, at all. He first returned to talk about the previous topic and then he briefly talked about the environment. Biden mentions his own record, what he has done to combat climate change and that Trump is not only doing nothing, which is reflected by Trump’s avoidance of the topic. He does briefly talk about something that’s not at all relevant to the topic, nor the question that asked, so, he does violate the maxim of relation and is uncooperative in that regard. He is, however, largely on topic, unlike Trump, so he is still fairly cooperative with the audience. This prompted Trump to address the issue, so he ends up speaking about something that is relevant to the topic, at least briefly, but, again, he talks only about what he’s done, not what he’d do as the next president. Biden’s response to this is largely on topic and he does also mention where the country is headed under his administration.
Moving on to social security and what will be done to retain it, Biden is largely cooperative, giving his audience enough information about what he’ll do, in a clear manner, but he does argue that Trump wants to get rid of it. According to PolitiFact’s checkers, this is not the case. Apparently Trump previously advocated for such measures, but then later on backpedalled on such plans, which Biden doesn’t acknowledge. In other words, he violates the maxim of quality. Of course, it is possible that he sincere believes that Trump will cut, if not axe social security. That said, he should be aware of how his opponent has changed his plans, so it’s seems like a convenient thing to forget.
It takes some minutes again to get back on track. Trump ignores the topic and the next question, so Biden is left to address childcare and how to improve it. He also ends up on a tangent, talking about matters that have nothing to do with the topic, nor the question. It’s only in the last twenty seconds or so of his turn that he addresses the topic and the question. I don’t think he violates the maxim quality, nor the maxim of manner here, but it is difficult to assess these maxims because he violates the maxim of quantity by keeping his answer so brief. He doesn’t add anything in his follow up either. To be fair, he does address the issue, if only briefly, so you could say that he is cooperative. In contrast, Trump doesn’t address the topic, at all, not even in his follow up. He violates the maxim of relevance to such extent that the other maxims cannot be assessed. It’s fair to say that he is being as uncooperative as possible.
Guess what? Yes, you guessed it. The further you watch this detabe, things aren’t getting substantially better in terms of the cooperative principle. Trump takes a minute to talk about something else, going off topic, only to be reminded to answer the question that he does not answer, despite having a minute to answer it. He does deal with the topic, the opioid crises in the US, but he didn’t provide any clear answer to what he’d do get people already on opioids off opioids. Okay, you could say that he isn’t violating the maxim of relevance once he is reminded what the question was, but then you could say that he is violating the maxim of manner, because his answer, limiting the availability of drugs, is there, but it’s not clearly connected to the question. Biden is more explicit about his answer. That said, it’s not entirely clear what thats to do with helping people already on opioids as he and Trump both seem to think that they are able to reduce the supply of opioids to the extent that it makes a difference to the people already on opioids.
The going gets a bit better once Biden and Trump are asked to address their age, but that’s only because you can answer the question quite easily. There’s little need to divert the attention or the like. That said, according the fact checkers at PolitiFact, Biden manages to violate the maxim of quality by stating that you make really good money working in the semiconductor industry, even without a university degree. Well, that’s lucrative business, as the fact checkers point out, but to really good money workin in the industry does require a relevant university degree.
I’m gonna skip the rest, the final ten to fifteen minutes, because it’s so bananas that you need to see it yourself. It is so full of … and has nothing to do with running the country that you just need to see it yourself. Whoever was responsible for muting and unmuting the microphones was also not doing their job. Instead of taking turns, they ended up going back and forth in rapid succession.
To summarize this second half of the debate, Biden did his thing. He was mostly on topic and did answer the questions. He largely cooperative. He did fail the maxim of quality, what, three times. He also went off topic occasionally, albeit it was compared to Trump who managed to ignore entire topics. Overall, he did just fine.
To address the entire debate, you could say that Biden didn’t do that well in the debate. He was largely cooperative. He did stumble occasionally, mixing things up, there’s that, but, overall, I’d say that he was fairly easy to follow and he played ball with the audience. But what’s the problem then? Ah, well, I’d say that Biden was just too nice. He seems to have expected Trump to play, no, not nice, as that’s not his thing, but at least by the rules. Trump happily ignored the rules. He spoke about whatever he wanted to talk about, when he wanted to talk about it, the way he wanted to talk about it. How could he? Well, it’s simple really. You don’t have to play by the rules if the rules aren’t enforced. Biden played by the rules, for the most part, but it’s kind of tough to win or look like you did well, if the other player ignores all the rules and you don’t object to it. The best he did was to grin and look baffled. Okay, that can work, but I don’t think it did.
If we look at, yes, look at, what seems to have bothered commentators was Biden’s facial expressions. It’s like was he alright? What was going on? He did look off, there’s that. At the same time, I have a feeling that he looked the way he looked, like all puzzled, because, boy, oh boy, the whole thing was pretty bizarre. This was especially the case with the abortion discussion. It’s like, he had this look on his face, like are really going to even discuss this, culminating in him saying “period, period, period” after explaining how this was handled for decades in the US.
The thing with the cooperative principle is also that, well, that it fails to account for people like Trump. It’s not that he just violates the maxim of quality, like all the time, or that he violates the other maxims instead, but that none of it matters. Someone might argue that he actually believes what he says to be the truth, that he is, strangely enough, sincere, so he isn’t actually violating the maxim of quality. While that may be the case, gotta acknowledge that, I reckon he isn’t being sincere. I think he doesn’t think along those lines. It’s not about whether he is sincere or insincere, but rather about how he says, whatever he says, in a way that is all about establishing that as being the case, regardless of whether it is considered to be the case or not.
This is Austin’s take on language. We don’t describe anything. So, when Trump says something like that his opponent is a liar, or something absurdly hyperbolic like “I’ve never seen anybody lie like this guy”, as he did in this debate, all that matters is that people happily believe that it is the case. Strangely enough, he gets this and takes full advantage of it. He plays the game to the hilt. Saying that you’re right and he’s wrong doesn’t do anything. You can’t beat him by appealing to truth, because, he gets it, how it’s not about truth or falsity, but about felicity or infelicity. It doesn’t matter if he is sincere or not, if he believes that he is right about something, but whether people believe he is sincere and that he is right about that something. To win him, you gotta stop believing that you are right and start making sure people believe that you are right.
To return to my initial point, Trump’s win may not have been a good thing for him. How so? Well, while I’d say that Biden did just fine, he could have done way better. With Biden gone, Trump has to face someone who can look at this debate, and his previous debates, and be like, well, well, well, I wonder what would happen if I also ignore the rules. Trump was also keen to let everyone know how old and senile Biden was, and what travesty that was for the whole country, but now he has to campaign against a much younger candidate. Okay, Kamala Harris is hardly young, there’s that, but she is way, way younger than Trump. He’s now an easy target in this regard. She can always remind the voters that if he gets elected, he’s older than Biden was during his time in the office. Ouch! Who’s looking old and senile now?
To be clear, none of this is to say that this is how the US voters feel about this. You can say all kinds of things and, ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether it holds or not. What matters is whether people believe that it holds. I haven’t looked into the issue enough, gotta admit that, but with Harris replacing Biden, I’d say that women are the ones who are going to decide this election. She has the disadvantage of being a woman, by which I mean no disrespect, but that there’s a lot of people who don’t want to see a woman win the election, like ever. That said, she also has the advantage of being a woman, by which I mean that there are a lot of people who want to see a woman win the election, now more than ever, for the first time in US history.
Then there’s how Biden was basically your generic white guy, doing well in life, just as Trump is your generic white guy, doing well in life. Harris might be generic, just as most politicians are, and doing well in life, just as most politicans are, but she’s not white, nor a guy. Trump’s victory over Biden was Pyrrhic in this way as well, because the voter had the option to vote for either a generic white guy or a generic white guy. All Trump had to do was to be the more memorable generic white guy. That’s gone now.
I’m gonna end by pointing out how interesting and, dare I say, fun this was. It was also somewhat frustrating, focusing solely on Biden, to see how he performed, because, well, I’d say it was actually okay. Not good, but not bad either. He struggled with the numbers, there’s that, but it wasn’t in bad faith. I did slip into commenting on some of the things that Trump mentioned, but I tried my best not to. Oh, and oh boy, that was tough. There were so many times I wanted to just be like wait, wait, wait, hold on, what did you say, that’s just simply not the case. That’s why writing this was so frustrating.
References
- Austin, J. L. ([1955] 1962). How to Do Things with Words (J. O. Urmson, Ed.). Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
- CNN (2024). CNN Presidential Debate: President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v-8wJkmwBY
- CNN (2024). CNN Presidential Debate: READ: Biden-Trump debate transcript. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/27/politics/read-biden-trump-debate-rush-transcript/index.html
- Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts (pp. 41–58). New York, NY: Academic Press.
- Grice, H. P. ([1975] 1989). Logic and Conversation. In H. P. Grice, Studies in the Way of Words (pp. 22–40). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- PolitiFact (2024). 2024 presidential debate fact-check: How accurate were Joe Biden, Donald Trump? https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/28/2024-presidential-debate-fact-check-biden-trump/
- The Associated Press (2024). Here’s a look at some of the false claims made during Biden and Trump’s first debate. https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-misinformation-election-debate-trump-biden-577507522762aa10f6ee5be3a0ced2bb