Read the pdf of the complaint. Rhetorically, an interesting case, so let's write it up honestly. (Which is to say: you can now safely ignore the pdf.) "This is their new hoax." What to make of it? 1/
Critics jumped on it. 'He said the virus is a hoax!' Then they got fact-checked. He did not, per se, precisely, assert 'the virus is a hoax'. Yet: what he DID say was 1) false; 2) and 'conversationally implicated' the virus was a hoax. 2/
If you aren't a philosopher, 'conservational impicature' is explained here at length. At brief: in communication, reasonable, hence shared, assumptions about conversation warrant inferences about it, hence are intentionally, mutually relied on to do so. 3/ plato.stanford.edu/entries/implic…
Intuitively: if you say something obviously false ('nice weather' in the rain) I figure you are joking via a simple inference from the obvious falsehood, plus your obvious recognition that I would recognize it as such, plus other stuff, to: you're joking. 4/
Other stuff: even simple cases get analytically complicated. There's 'conversational implicature', then 'conventional implicature'. That distinction is hazy. Take the simple irony case. We humans do this thing where we say the opposite, for fun - 'nice weather!' in the rain. 5/
It's funny! But if you weren't used to is, as a Martian, it would be hard to work out the right answer as to what is meant: this weather is bad! You need knowledge of a conventional 'it's opposite day in my mouth!' gambit. Only if you know that might be it can you work it out. 6/
Now, Trump. First, the falsehood. 'New hoax' implies the existence of at least one old hoax. There is no old hoax. The Russia stuff, the Ukraine stuff. Trump has repeatedly called them hoaxes, but they weren't that. 'Hoax' is a very strong word, after all. 7/
At this point, due to this presupposed falsehood, there is a kind of branching in the analysis. Trump is saying: this new case is LIKE the old cases. In a weird way, that is true. They are all real scandals, also all cases in which people got really outraged at Trump, rightly! 8/
But it obviously isn't true in the way that he intends his followers to take it: all these cases are hoaxes. That is: in every one of these cases, any significant appearance that I have behaved incompetently or wrongly is deliberately fabricated by the opposition, to hurt me. 9/
For any of these to be hoaxes it is necessary that those perpetrating them KNOW it. ('Hoax' is stronger than 'lie' in that regard. You can lie to yourself, but not hoax yourself?) If Russia is a hoax, Ukraine is a hoax, virus coverage is a hoax, the media fully KNOW it. 10/
Pretty obviously that's false. But Trump means to communicate that it's true. Now, what would need to be true for it to be TRUE that the media coverage of the virus outbreak amounted to a 'hoax', which Trump did literally say. 10/
It would need to be the case that the media knowingly fabricated falsehoods about the outbreak, intending these falsehoods to induce the public to believe, falsely, that 1) the outbreak is serious, hence that 2) Trump could be at serious fault for mishandling it. 11/
This is consistent with the situation being a para-Gettier case. It could be true (it clearly was) that the outbreak was serious. Therefore it could be true (though it clearly actually wasn't) that the media spread a line they believed was a lie, but that was basically true. 12/
But obviously no reasonable person, hearing 'Jones is committing a hoax' is going to think: the mere fact that old man Jones is dressing as a ghost, to drive down property values, does not IMPLY there is no ghost. It could be that, unknown to Jones, there really is a ghost. 13/
'It's Jones in a sheet' conversationally implicates: there is no ghost. Since if it were both Jones in a sheet AND a real ghost, by coincidence, Grice's Maxim of Quality would require you to add the second bit, too.
Conclusion: an audience that shares Trump's (false) presuppositions about hoaxes is going to infer from 'this is their new hoax' that there is no serious virus situation. Perhaps no virus, even. 14/
Because, although Trump's statement does not IMPLY even that the media message is false (merely that the media intend it to be so), yet a reasonable unreasonable person (i.e. a FOX viewer) would draw the implicature that the virus is nothing to worry about. /end
P.S. there are interesting points to be made, following, about 'seriously not literally'. Bizarre facts follow from the fact that it is conversationally conventional, in our culture, for Trump to lie and suffer no proportionate consequence. Grice for thee but not for me!
P.P.S. In talk as in life. Conservatism is the philosophy that some are protected by, but not bound by (Gricean maxims of conversation). Whereas others are bound by, but not protected by (those same maxims.) Hence this suit.
