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If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? | If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? | ||
:—Bishop Berkeley}} | :—Bishop Berkeley}} | ||
Perhaps unwittingly, George Berkeley addresses the language-dependence of reality. For | Perhaps unwittingly, George Berkeley addresses the language-dependence of reality. For what no human ear registers cannot be articulated, and what cannot be articulated carries no weight in our ontology. One only articulates things one cares about — the world wide web seems to gives the lie to this, come to think of it — so, for something to matter, ''someone'' who cares about it must see or hear it. | ||
So it is with contracts. There are two kinds of obligations: ''overt'' ones, that cannot help but announce themselves to someone who is on record as caring about them — payments, deliveries, the rendering of agreed-upon services — and implicit ones, private matters that can only be determined by ''enquiry'' — one’s good standing, license to do what one has undertaken, ones solvency. These latter obligations are generally I direct: I don’t care exactly that you hold a licence to drive a taxi, I care that you can drive and my journey will be safe and a licence is a basic proxy for that enquiry. | |||
Revision as of 10:17, 28 December 2023
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
- —Bishop Berkeley
Perhaps unwittingly, George Berkeley addresses the language-dependence of reality. For what no human ear registers cannot be articulated, and what cannot be articulated carries no weight in our ontology. One only articulates things one cares about — the world wide web seems to gives the lie to this, come to think of it — so, for something to matter, someone who cares about it must see or hear it.
So it is with contracts. There are two kinds of obligations: overt ones, that cannot help but announce themselves to someone who is on record as caring about them — payments, deliveries, the rendering of agreed-upon services — and implicit ones, private matters that can only be determined by enquiry — one’s good standing, license to do what one has undertaken, ones solvency. These latter obligations are generally I direct: I don’t care exactly that you hold a licence to drive a taxi, I care that you can drive and my journey will be safe and a licence is a basic proxy for that enquiry.