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For the avoidance of doubt: Difference between revisions
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“You had one job”, so the saying goes, and as an officer of Her Majesty’s courts, that job was to craft your prose in a way that ''didn’t contain doubt in the first place''. For what is the point of a {{tag|contract}} if not to clear up the confusion so readily left by the primordial grunts, nods and inarticulate mumblings of merchants as they interact with each other? | “You had one job”, so the saying goes, and as an officer of Her Majesty’s courts, that job was to craft your prose in a way that ''didn’t contain doubt in the first place''. For what is the point of a {{tag|contract}} if not to clear up the confusion so readily left by the primordial grunts, nods and inarticulate mumblings of merchants as they interact with each other? | ||
This is how it usually plays | This is how it usually plays — this is, honest to God, a real-life example: | ||
:''The [[Chargor]] assigns and agrees to assign absolutely, [[subject to]] the [[proviso]] for re-assignment on redemption, all of its rights in respect of the Assigned Receivables, together with the benefit of any security granted to the [[Chargor]] thereof (and together in all cases, [[for the avoidance of doubt]], with the proceeds thereof).'' | :''The [[Chargor]] assigns and agrees to assign absolutely, [[subject to]] the [[proviso]] for re-assignment on redemption, all of its rights in respect of the Assigned Receivables, together with the benefit of any security granted to the [[Chargor]] thereof (and together in all cases, [[for the avoidance of doubt]], with the proceeds thereof).'' | ||
Do you feel reinvigorated with clarity and certainty, readers? | |||
Speaking of God, it is a little known fact that Descartes’ epic metaphysical tract {{br|Discourse on the Method}} was a spirited attempt to define the expression ''[[for the avoidance of doubt]]''. Descartes started by asking, “what ''is'' doubt? Can we ever be sure that what we think is doubt, is, actually, doubt? And if there is some doubt about it, how should we feel about it?” He never figured that out, but discovered himself and God along the way, so it wasn’t a bad day out all told. | |||
Yet, ''what is doubt''? What is this existential flummery, that fogs our interior on even the sunniest day? Whence that numbing smoke that more thickly fills our mortal cockpit, day by day? | |||
The [[JC]] likes to rush in, as you know, where fools fear to tread. So let us try to achieve what Descartes did not. If you cannot ''avoid'' it, at least put a ''name'' on it. And let us at least do it properly — [[for the avoidance of doubt]] — thoroughly define what we ''mean'' by “[[doubt]]”: | The [[JC]] likes to rush in, as you know, where fools fear to tread. So let us try to achieve what Descartes did not. If you cannot ''avoid'' it, at least put a ''name'' on it. And let us at least do it properly — [[for the avoidance of doubt]] — thoroughly define what we ''mean'' by “[[doubt]]”: | ||