A platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, often used as a
thought-terminating cliché
A thought-terminating cliché (also known as a semantic stop-sign, a thought-stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliché thinking) is a form of loaded language, often passing as folk wisdom, intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance. ...
, aimed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease.
The statement may be true, but its meaning has been lost due to its excessive use.
["Platitude"](_blank)
''Cambridge Dictionary''
Platitudes have been criticized as giving a false impression of wisdom, making it easy to accept falsehoods:
A platitude is even worse than a cliché. It’s a sanctimonious cliché, a statement that is not only old and overused but often moralistic and imperious. ... atitudes have an aphoristic quality, they seem like timeless moral lessons. They therefore shape our view of the world, and can lull us into accepting things that are actually false and foolish.[Nathan J. Robinson, "The Uses of Platitudes", ''Current Affairs'', August 23, 201]
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Platitudes often take the form of
tautologies, e.g., "it is what it is", making them appear vacuously true. But the phrase is used to mean "there is no way of changing it", which is no longer a tautology: "Structuring the sentiment as a tautology allows it to appear inescapable." At the same time, some phrases that have become platitudes may provide useful moral guidance, such as
"do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Others, though widely trivialized, may be thought-provoking, such as "Be the change you wish to see in the world".
Etymology
The word is a borrowing from the French compound ''platitude'', from ''plat'' 'flat' + ''-(i)tude'' '-ness', thus 'flatness'. The figurative sense is first attested in French in 1694 in the meaning 'the quality of banality' and in 1740 in the meaning 'a commonplace remark'. It is first attested in English in 1762.
Examples
*It doesn't matter who scores, as long as the team wins.
*Sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.
*Nobody’s perfect.
["Platitude"](_blank)
''Literary Terms''
*Good things come to those who wait.
*Life is a mystery.
*That’s just my personal opinion.
*I wish I knew then what I know now.
*Sometimes bad things lead to good things.
*What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
*We all die someday.
*Everybody changes.
*It really do be like that sometimes.
*Take the good with the bad.
*Everything isn’t always what it seems.
*Everything happens for a reason.
*Whatever will be, will be.
In philosophy
In philosophy, platitudes are beliefs or assertions about a topic that are generally accepted as
common sense
''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political argu ...
. In some approaches to
conceptual analysis
Philosophical analysis is any of various techniques, typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition, in order to "break down" (i.e. analyze) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concepts ...
, they are taken as a starting point. Conjoining the platitudes on a topic may give a
Ramsey sentence. Analyzing platitudes is part of the
Canberra Plan
In philosophy, the Canberra Plan is a contemporary program of philosophical methodology, methodology and philosophical analysis, analysis that answers questions about what the world is like according to physics. It is considered a naturalistic app ...
of
philosophical methodology
In its most common sense, philosophical methodology is the field of inquiry studying the methods used to do philosophy. But the term can also refer to the methods themselves. It may be understood in a wide sense as the general study of principles ...
.
[Daniel Nolan, "Platitudes and metaphysics", in David Braddon-Mitchell & ]Robert Nola
Robert Nola (25 June 1940 - 23 October 2022) was a New Zealand philosophy academic, and was an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. His work focussed on the philosophy and history of science, on epist ...
(eds.), ''Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism'', MIT Press, 200
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See also
References
Bibliography
* Jay J. Smith, ''A Plethora of Platitudes: A collection of cliches and an assortment of adages'', Writers Club Press (self-published), 2000. {{isbn, 1462089666
* James A. Chapman, ''Handbook of Grammar and Composition''. Pensacola, FL: Beka Book Publications, 1985.
Rhetoric
es:Pedro Grullo