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res ipsa loquitur

The thing speaks for itself. Legal term for something which is self-evident.

"They misunderestimate me." -- George W. Bush

by Kurtz February 11, 2004

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res ipsa loquitur prima facie

Literally, " The thing, itself, speaks, at first face. "

An ideal of hermeneutics which insists that the logical foundation for an interpretation should be the most straightforward, most obvious, most logical, most self-evident reading which one would most likely assume from a text when taking it as it comes to one, or reading it as it as, in it's own terms and in its own words, at face value.

Ideally it is an attempt to read a text with fresh wide-open eyes, free from prejudices and preconceptions and all outside influences; as if reading it for the first time, with no foreknowledge, thereof. Ideal in theory but likely impossible in practice.

Further elaborations should be built upon this foundation if and only if sound, valid, objective, and logical reasons exist to support such deviations.

Your intrepretation seems contrived and doesn't fit well with the spirit of res ipsa loquitur prima facie.

by Gill Malankhoney (3) February 19, 2012

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