Well, what does 'good' mean anyway...? As Wittgenstein suggested, 'good,' like 'game,' has a family of meanings. Prominent among them is this one: 'meets the criteria or standards of assessment or evaluation.'

The assertion fallacy ... is the fallacy of confusing the conditions for the performance of the speech act of assertion with the analysis of the meaning of par…

Where questions of style and exposition are concerned I try to follow a simple maxim: if you can't say it clearly you don't understand it yourself.

The general nature of the speech act fallacy can be stated as follows, using 'good' as our example. Calling something good is characteristically praising or co…