Learn English – What does the expression “in Pickwickian sense” exactly mean

phrase-meaningphrases

I have not infrequently come across the expression "Pickwickian sense".
Of course, I have tried to search on the web, but generally the explanations I have found do not fit well into the context concerned. For example, the online Merriam-Webster offers the following description:

Definition of Pickwickian

1
:  marked by simplicity and generosity

2
:  intended or taken in a sense other than the obvious or literal one

(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Pickwickian)

I feel, however, that the e.g. text below says something more subtle than
the one in which the expression interpreted in this way:

[…] I had the opportunity to suggest to Quine
that this strong version of revisability is rather
hard to take, especially when applied to laws of logic.
Quine responded as follows: "Well, I think I rather agree. I think nowadays it seems to me at best an uninteresting legalism".

The expression "uninteresting legalism" is Quine's marker for
earlier views that he has come to view as – if not altogether wrong,
and perhaps even in some Pickwickian sense correct – needlessly
extreme.

(Fogelin: Aspects of Quine's Naturalized Epistemology
In: The Cambridge Companion to QUINE, Edited by
Roger F. Gibson Jr., p.32)

Best Answer

The Unabridged version of Merriam-Webster expands on the definition of Pickwickian that you give (emphasis mine):

[so called from the peculiar sense given to common words by Mr. Blotton and Mr. Pickwick, characters in the novel Pickwick Papers] : intended or taken in a sense other than the obvious or literal one : specially or whimsically limited or distorted in intended meaning

"injustice … is merely a Pickwickian expression for what human beings do not like" — Nation

In your quote, Pickwickian is used to refer to Quine's earlier views that, "if not altogether wrong," had, in some limited or whimsical sense, some degree of correctness.

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