Summary
In the context of the philosophical problematic field
Gevorg G. Hakobyan
The subject of this analysis is the problem of the (moral, political, scientific, etc.) obligation of demonstration/not demonstration of existing or possible errors in all kinds of spheres of human activity.
At first glance, it seems clear and self-evident that any errors that exist or are possible in human relations must be revealed, educed and eliminated. And if this process of elimination requires that the existence of the error be publicly announced, then this demand also has to be met. But this seems true only at a glance.
Actually, revealing the errors is fraught with the danger of deepening, spreading, and/or strengthening those errors. That is, it is quite possible that when we point out the errors, it will lead to the exact opposite result.
Taking into account this circumstance, it can be insisted that there is a paradoxical situation. Namely, the errors have to be pointed out to be eliminated or at least neutralized, but at the same time, the errors do not have to be pointed out to be eliminated or at least neutralized.
By all appearances, this is the essence of the problem of the obligation of demonstration/not demonstration of errors, which also exists in lexicographical processes.
It is self-evident and many lexicographers also explicitly claim that the purpose of a dictionary is to demonstrate the truth and not the errors. Nevertheless, there are many cases when the lexicographers not only point out the errors and/or explain them in detail, but also put the wrong or inaccurate word in place of the correct headword.
This lexicographical practice can have many causes, perhaps the most predominant of which is the widespread use of the wrong word at the expense of obscuring the right one. Lexicographers sometimes intentionally make the wrong or even non-existent word a headword, being sure that if the correct word was put in place of the headword, the reader would not be able to find it, because the reader only knows the wrong version of that word and will eventually search for its wrong version. In these and other cases of pointing out errors, the errors can be spread, deepened, and/or more strengthened: a result against which (among others) any scientific practice as well as lexicography is directed. And here a question arises. How can we deal with the abovementioned paradoxical situation?
Overcoming this situation is very important, as lexicography has a significant impact on both the speed and direction of the development of the (Armenian) language.
It is clear that there can be more than one way to achieve a possible solution to the problem, but in the article it is suggested to deal with this situation by constructing a conventional paradigm and making it public, as the most common or perhaps the only way to get rid of paradoxical situations is the conventionalist approach.