Well, if we’re being pedantic, it’s an imperative, not declarative, sentence, so “tautological” doesn’t apply. And even if it were a tautology, communicative theory says that words communicate information through their meta-meaning, not their explicit meaning, so their literal meanings, in themselves, are not relevant. That a statement’s literal meaning is non-informative is not important if the meta-meaning is informative. In fact, given the implicit assumption that every statement is meaningful, the lack of information in the literal meaning simply makes the recipient look hard at the meta-meaning.
Also, that phrase doesn’t appear in the article, but that’s likely because the article was edited.
Well, if we’re being pedantic, it’s an imperative, not declarative, sentence, so “tautological” doesn’t apply. And even if it were a tautology, communicative theory says that words communicate information through their meta-meaning, not their explicit meaning, so their literal meanings, in themselves, are not relevant. That a statement’s literal meaning is non-informative is not important if the meta-meaning is informative. In fact, given the implicit assumption that every statement is meaningful, the lack of information in the literal meaning simply makes the recipient look hard at the meta-meaning.
Also, that phrase doesn’t appear in the article, but that’s likely because the article was edited.