My point is that this concern is adequately summarized by something like “claiming without acknowledgment/disclaimers”, but not “claiming confidently” (which would change credence in the name of something that’s not correctness).
I disagree that this is a problem in most cases (acknowledgment is a cost, and usually not informative), but acknowledge that this is debatable. Similarly to the forms of politeness the require more words, as opposed to forms of politeness that, all else equal, leave the message length unchanged. Acknowledgment is useful where it’s actually in doubt.
In this case, Said is both (1) claiming the thing very confidently, when it seems pretty clear to me that that confidence is not warranted, and (2) claiming it as if it’s common knowledge, when it seems pretty clear to me that it’s far from being common knowledge.
My point is that this concern is adequately summarized by something like “claiming without acknowledgment/disclaimers”, but not “claiming confidently” (which would change credence in the name of something that’s not correctness).
I disagree that this is a problem in most cases (acknowledgment is a cost, and usually not informative), but acknowledge that this is debatable. Similarly to the forms of politeness the require more words, as opposed to forms of politeness that, all else equal, leave the message length unchanged. Acknowledgment is useful where it’s actually in doubt.
In this case, Said is both (1) claiming the thing very confidently, when it seems pretty clear to me that that confidence is not warranted, and (2) claiming it as if it’s common knowledge, when it seems pretty clear to me that it’s far from being common knowledge.