Dilbert’s programme

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Dilbert’s programme is a legal theory formulated by pioneering German jurist Havid Dilbert in the early part of the 19th century.

Herr Dilbert proposed his programme as a solution to a crisis in the conceptual underpinnings of pedantry, as various attempts to codify the fundamental essence of punctiliousness had foundered, beset by paradox and inconsistency.

To save the day, Dilbert proposed to ground all existing theories of quibblery to a finite, complete set of definitions and legal propositions, and thereafter formulate a logical proof that these captious fundaments were the irreducible, internally consistent axioms of cavilry.

The “Dilbert programme”, as it become known, eschewed the undefined use of any expression, however banal or self-evident, in any legal instrument, on the grounds that such uncertainty opens the way to an unstable state of Cardozo indeterminacy.

Wherever Dilbert found nouns, noun phrases or even suggestive adjectives, he defined them. he even launched a public appeal, to the eaglery of the land, asking them to submit canonical definitions for inclusion in his programme. He assembled a small research team and built a corrugated-iron shed in the grounds of Broadmoor Prison called the “Definorium” to house the submissions (bearing quotations illustrating the expressions to be defined), that began flooding in, and which the team wrote out on little brown cards called “riders”.

The Dilbert definition

After ten years Dilbert found, to his chagrin, that he had been unable to reduce a small, stubborn class of expressions where, logically, no better referent (what Dilbert called the “definand”) was available than the very referring expression itself (the “definier”). These cases he directed the team to define exactly as they were, to avoid, he claimed all doubt of any type, kind or variety, though others suggested that it was more to do with Dilbert’s “strict Lutheran upbringing”.

Thus Dilbert is credited with inventing the “Dilbert definition”, where the thing being defined (the “definand”, notated Đ) and the label defining it (the “definier”, notated đ) are identical, per the following expression:

Đ_n ⇔ đ_n

Several Dilbert definitions appear in the following example, first identified in Australia:

An insured person (the “insured person”) may cancel (“cancel”) a policy (the “policy”) by providing us as insurer (“us” or the “insurer”) a written notice (the “written notice”) of the cancellation (the “cancellation”).

Academic debate rages to this day as to whether a Dilbert definition qualifies as an unusually stable type of Biggs hoson, or whether it simply has null semantic content.

The incompleteness paradox

One gray September day in 1907 a postcard apparently containing two new definitions dropped on the doormat of the little iron shed. Hilbert snatched it up.

“Inclusive definier” shall mean all definiers whose definand includes that definier. For the avoidance of doubt, the inclusive definier itself shall be, and shall be deemed to be, an inclusive definier.

Stroking his whiskers, the great German jurist read on:

“Exclusive definier” shall mean all definiers whose definand does not includes that definier. For the avoidance of doubt, the exclusive definier itself shall

The remainder of the page was blank.

Dilbert is said to have sat down, quietly, at the corner of his table and, for four or more hours, stared blankly into space.

Then, abruptly, he got up and announced, “I am just going outside and may be some time”. He walked out without closing the door, and was never seen again.

See also

• Cardozo indeterminacy
• Definitions
• Biggs hoson