Threat and Fact

In the excellent film “Perfect World”: Terry’s bandit takes aim at a buddy nicknamed “Butch” (K. Costner) and says, “If you don’t do something, I’m about to shoot you.” Costner replies, “Stop threatening me.” Terry says, “It’s not a threat, it’s a fact” – and he continues to target Costner. Then Costner says to Terry, “IF YOU DON’T stop aiming at me, I’ll get your nose broken. THIS IS A THREAT.”

Terry, however, is still aiming. Costner then punches Terry in the face and breaks his nose and says, “THIS IS A FACT.” This is how the filmmakers showed by showing the DEIC DEFINITION OF THREATENING AND FACT. In the logic course, we learned the types of definitions: classical (definitio fit per genus et differentiam specificam), functional definition, and deicical definition (by showing the difference). The fact that definitions do not help as much as a student might think after the textbook content is most evident precisely after the DEFINITION OF THE WORD DEFINITION itself.

Paradoxically, the most difficult to explain in words is the DECITIC DEFINITION, which is the definition of SHOWING DIFFERENCE.