I’m Sorry

Apology or sympathy? A conceptual analysis of saying ‘Sorry’

We tend to have the idea that when we do bad things, and we know it, we say sorry. This principle is hammered home from infancy and commendably so; think of TV’s ‘Supernanny’ naughtystepping toddlers into admitting to their mischief and forcing them to apologise to the afflicted parent/sibling/whatever. In saying sorry for their misdemeanour, the child is acknowledging their responsibility for their behaviour and making it clear that they understand that they should not have carried out whatever perversion they are guilty of.

If I were to say sorry to my (noninfant) brother for having punched his face, I would seem to be claiming two things about myself: firstly, that I had indeed intentionally punched my brother on his face, and secondly, that I can now see that this was something I should not have done. If either of these claims were not true, then my brother could rightly claim that my ‘sorry’ was hollow: I would not be apologetic at all. With this in mind, we can characterise some necessary conditions that must be true of an agent when they say sorry for an action, if it is not to be a hollow or inauthentic apology: They must believe that they have intentionally performed an action; They must have an attitude of regret towards that action because of the actual or potential harm that has been dealt by that action to the person to whom they are apologising.

The notion of regret towards an action can be simply cashed out in terms of a desire to have not performed that action.

Now, I also use ‘sorry’ in other circumstances. Take for instance, “You were involved in a minor car accident?

Oh, I’m sorry to hear that”, or when said at a funeral, “I am sorry for your loss”.

Assuming that I am not regretting having intentionally listened to someone tell me of their vehicular misfortune, and that I’m not a murderer who attends his victims’ funerals, what’s going on? The obvious and accurate answer is that on occasion people use ‘sorry’ in a rather different way: to express sympathy, to demonstrate that they find some situation lamentable.

This is true even when that situation is not one to which the sympathiser is remotely related. This use of the word is neatly captured in the phrase “a sorry state of affairs” because it makes clear that the ‘sorry-ness’ applies to a broader situation independent of the agent, rather than picking out a relation between an agent and their act. The two conditions of the ‘apologetic sorry’ in the first paragraph clearly do not apply to the ‘sympathetic sorry’ as it is used at funerals and the like.

So what? One word, two uses? It matters because saying sorry has become a prominent feature of public life and too often these two discrete meanings are fudged. When politicians blunder, we hear things like, “I am sorry for any offence caused.” Does this mean that you’re apologising for what you have done because you offended people? Do you regret your behaviour and intend to avoid it in future? If that’s what you’re saying then say that. Admit you’ve done something you regret, apologise and move on, fine. But by phrasing it in the passive (offence caused) rather than active (causing offence) the speaker is distancing themselves from the action and it becomes

unclear that there is a genuine ‘apologetic sorry’ at work. Anyone can sympathise with, or lament, the existence of “any offence caused”, but only the agent can apologise for causing offence. Now there’s nothing wrong with sharing sympathies with people in unfortunate straits, but it does not amount to an apology. And if offended parties are calling for an apology,

“I’m sorry for any offence caused” should not placate them.

Luke Jones. MA Philosophy, University of Bristol. (AD absurdum Bristol’s Philosophy magazine, Spring 2012 Edition - p.7

Paradox: The Bridge

SOCRATES arrives at a bridge guarded by a powerful lord, Plato, and begs to be allowed to cross. Plato says: “I swear that if the next utterance you make is true I shall let you cross, but if it is false I shall throw you in the water.”

Socrates replies:

“You are going to throw me in the water.”

--

If Plato does not throw him in the water, Socrates has spoken falsely and should be thrown in; but if he is thrown in, Socrates has spoken truly and should not be thrown in." This is Buridan’s seventeenth sophism. You would expect that the only difficulty that Plato might have in fulfilling his oath would be in knowing whether Socrates’ utterance was true or not. But Socrates subtly manages to frustrate him.

Many philosopher s, following Aristotle, have denied that future contingent propositions have a truth value. If this view were right, Socrates’ utterance would not be true, since it is an utterance about something that may or may not happen in the future. But it would not be false either. However, Aristotle’s view confuses truth with knowledge or predetermination. To say that it is true that Socrates will be thrown in the water is not to say that anyone yet knows whether he will or that it is already determined whether he will. Its truth or falsity depends on what Plato is

going to do.

Is it logically impossible for Plato to fulfil his oath in the circumstances? “He has no obligation to keep it at all, simply because he cannot do so,” Buridan concludes, reasonably enough.

--

Reprinted from Paradoxes from A to Z, Michael Clark.

Further reading: John Buridan on Self- Reference, ed. And trans. G.E Hughes, Cambridge University Press, 1982.

(http://books.google.com.ua/books?id=HU-OiI1JyfkC&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru#v=onepage&q&f=false)