He denies that my happiness constitutes epistemic justification for my avowal; in fact, he denies that avowals are the sort of things that are justified.
Instead, he says, my avowal, like my smiling, makes sense together with my happiness in something like the way that a dog's pain and its moaning make sense together, in "the logical space of animate life".
Since dogs are not usually thought to possess self-knowledge, this analogy raises the question: Does my avowal "I'm happy" represent (or indicate) knowledge that I'm happy?
This minds me of a key refrain in Blood on the Tracks, Bob Dylan's divorce album, which, despite my general avowal to engagement, I've not dared approach.
Finkelstein emphasizes that, by "logical space", he does not mean that my happiness rationalizes the avowal.
Branson's avowals of loyalty to Britain while repairing to the tropics "for my health" reminded reader Tim O'Malley of the old Alan Bennett sketch about the gritty northern writer who decamps to live in Ibiza: "The blue of the Mediterranean reminds me of the blue of miners' eyes".
At my first meeting, DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little generated just such a snowstorm of blank avowals.
As a result of the study's findings, Kinkead writes, President Eisenhower issued an extraordinary six-point Code of Conduct for members of the armed forces, which included avowals like "I will make no oral or written statements disloyal to my country and its allies or harmful to their cause" and "I will never forget that I am an American fighting man".
Nureyev's determination to honour the original, and prove that he had understood every nuance of imagery, made the ballet over-literal at times - nowhere more so than the third act's personification of death who, in reference to Juliet's avowal, "I'll to my wedding bed / And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!", really does appear on stage to have his way with her.
The lyrics on "Hood Billionaire" are almost ironic in their brash avowals of drug culture: "I got coke like the eighties / I got coke like the eighties / In my coke-white Mercedes," he raps at one point.
Avowals and marches by Muslims will not shift that perception.
