ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the notion of faux pas. Plainly, the notion of faux pas is amorphous, and there are many different kinds of missteps, blunders, mistakes, and errors. "Gaffe" is defined as a faux pas, but also as a blunder. A popular American dictionary, the 1970 New Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary, agrees but adds that a faux pas is especially a social blunder. More needs to be said about ignorance and mistake, especially mistake, which is one of the definitions of "faux pas". The English philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe is famous for popularizing the distinction between mistakes in judgment and mistakes in performance. The distinction between ignorance of a particular and ignorance of the universal is parallel to the distinction between mistake of fact and mistake of law. Aristotle's position apparently denies that a mistake of law excuses.
