Rhetorical side point: You don’t have to use standard definitions in your argument BUT if you use a non-standard definition, take care to point that out. Non-standard definitions can be useful because not every concept has a preexisting word attached to it.
As it happens Happy_Fun_Ball uses conventional definitions in this thread, but he doesn’t have to - nor is he being pitted here. This is a public service announcement.
There’s no “Correct” definition, just as there’s no universally correct assumption. There are only commonly used definitions and non-standard ones.
Via Reddit, and other sources:
“If you wish to converse with me,” said Voltaire, “define your terms.” How many a debate would have been deflated into a paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms! This is the alpha and omega of logic, the heart and soul of it, that every important term in serious discourse shall be subjected to the strictest scrutiny and definition. It is difficult, and ruthlessly tests the mind; but once done it is half of any task. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy (Chapter 2, Aristotle and Greek Science, Part 3, The Foundation of Logic).
‘Is MAGA a fifth column?’ seems pretty specifically a question of definition. I am no great fan of dictionary prescriptivism, but if your question is ‘is X a Y’, you pretty much have to accept a conventional definition of Y.
No. It’s perfectly acceptable to say X is a Y in a specified sense. Or: “Let me define my terms. This is what X is. This is what Y is. X is Y.”
This is acceptable because not all concepts have English words attached to them. I do agree that if you use an unusual definition, then you are obliged to say so. Indeed, to fight ignorance you are obliged to concede that X is not Y, by the usual definition of Y.
In the case of MAGA being a fifth column, it was not a fifth column by definition 1 of my college dictionary, because it’s not the 1930s and MAGA is located outside of Spain. But it was a fifth column by the 2nd definition, or so it was argued. It was not a fifth column given certain unusual definitions. Fair enough: the underlying goal was to properly characterize MAGA with respect to a particular term. That will involve making distinctions.
To be sure, asking for definitions can be done in bad faith, like everything else. I think the rejoinder to that might be, “All my definitions are conventional. Is there a distinction you need elucidated?”
The point though is that a lot of virulent arguments are artificial, insofar as the parties could both be technically correct but using different definitions. Sure, one set of definitions might be unusual and even artificial: often the point being made in that case is trivial. Defining terms explicitly can make that clearer.
Furthermore, we shouldn’t expect someone just to define something on the fly: as Voltaire pointed out, it requires some effort (though it’s easier now that we have dictionaries to help). Defining even simply words on the fly can be challenging.
What if the central term is something like “Justice”, “Fair”, or “Freedom”? Definitions can be difficult in those cases, but I think there’s some value in identifying such situations. It can hint at intentional or non-intentional incoherence, situations where the claims fall short of being wrong or right, because no specific claims are really being made.
ETA: Is a multifunction printer/scanner a photocopy machine?
Certainly it seems spurious to argue something like ‘X is not a Y because it only fits one of the accepted or common definitions for Y’. It doesnt have to fit them all, indeed something fitting them all is probably not likely, which would be the very reason for multiple definitions existing.
There are people who like to argue as though anything has one and only one strict definition. Its a sort of ignorance-masquerading-as-erudition.
There’s no fixed and real answer that, insofar is there isn’t a broadly agreed consensus on what is fair. (There might be a consensus on who is the asshole though - it happens.) That’s the land of rhetoric, not precision. Defining fairness is unlikely to help, except in rare circumstances. I’d still endorse Voltaire’s sentiments though, because it makes sense to distinguish between different sorts disputes. Some might be settled in theory along the lines of, “If you believe X, then Y follows.” Others are straight-up opinions. GD vs IMHO, sort of.
Scope matters.
“My boss punched me in the face then kicked my coworker in both kidneys - is that fair?”
No. Its decidedly unequal. To make it fair, your boss must punch your coworker, then kick you in both kidneys. If you only have one kidney, there is no way to make it fair.
When I took philosophy courses, authors and speakers were almost always keen to define terms. i.e. “This is what I mean by personal peace and happiness.” I was recently in a discussion with some friends of mine about what unskilled labor means within the context of the labor market. In the context of employment, unskilled labor refers to jobs that require minimum education and/or training to perform a satisfactory job. A friend of mine was using his own personal definition which was any job that didn’t require a college degree. When you can’t agree on terms it makes conversation very difficult.
Great example. You can go over to the Bureau of Labor Statistics to find the official definition (which varies, see below). But it doesn’t always matter: if your friend was trying to make a point about workers who lack a college degree, you can accept his unusual definition for the purposes of discussion.
A unique aspect of the NCS is a series of questions that help BLS economists determine work levels—that is, the duties and responsibilities of a job are evaluated to give the job an overall work level between 1 and 15. BLS economists who collect the data assess and assign points to four components: knowledge, job controls and complexity, contacts, and physical environment. These points are added and then jobs are assigned levels from 1 to 15, akin to those used in the federal pay setting. Level 1 work is characterized as unskilled labor requiring no previous experience or consisting of routine tasks for which little training is required. Level 2 and 3 work require knowledge of basic operations which typically require some training or experience.
Workers often referred to as “unskilled” (individuals with high school diplomas, but not bachelor’s degrees) experience a fundamentally different wage trajectory than do workers with bachelor’s degrees.
Either definition is fine. Arguing which definition is correct is generally speaking off-topic, as it pertains to linguistics and not economics, provided you are clear about what you are saying. Arguing about correct definitions isn’t arguing about substance, generally speaking.
Yes, had my friend up front stated what he meant when he said unskilled labor it would have helped the flow of the conversation. The conversation started because a mutual friend of ours said there was no such thing as unskilled labor. So I explained at the beginning what unskilled labor was and he used his definition without sharing it with me which stymied conversation because we weren’t talking about the same thing. Not really.
Myself, Voltaire, and IIRC Aristotle noted that this sort of thing happens all the time. Too many heated arguments are in reality stupid arguments about definitions, so it sometimes makes sense to probe what people mean when they make broad declarative statements.
“There’s no such thing as unskilled labor, with very few exceptions.”
“There are tens of millions of unskilled laborers in the US.”
Both are true using different definitions. Both definitions are reasonable, just very different.
When I was in college almost every course started with the professor forcing us to define a term. Then he would (they were all he’s) would pick our attempts apart. All that the farce taught me was that broad concepts have huge gray boundaries and are impossible to capture in a neat little cage.
After college I learned how dictionaries write definitions - low-paid but dedicated workers trying to mesh together hundreds of actual usages into a handful of variants - and realized that while a dictionary was enormously helpful with words one didn’t know, it was next to useless in contentious arguments.
All one can do is try to be precise, lay out concepts as clearly as possible, use real-world examples, try to hope that the others are doing the same, and drill down to their foundations if not.
Stamper sets the tone in her opening chapter, giving readers a first taste of what’s to come: a candid portrayal of the ins and outs of lexicography, delivered with sharp wit and exactitude. Recalling the day she was hired by Merriam-Webster, Stamper invites readers to the hushed confines and inelegant cubicles of the “modest two-story brick building” in Springfield, Massachusetts where word mavens work, in some instances for months at a time, to extricate the definition, pronunciation, and etymological origin of individual words. Such work requires a reverence for the English language not found in the average person.
I think great dictionaries make a good or great starting point for defining contentious terms, but they are not the final authority. If nothing else their usage panels have experience with lexicographic word smithery, not an easy task as demonstrated in your college classes.
It’s helpful to define your terms, but it’s also unreasonable to ask people on the fly to construct a good definition. We have to make allowance for diplomacy and skill limitations. I see from the Amazon page for Kory Stamper’s book that it can take professionals 9 months to hammer out a suitable definition.
FWIW, my reflexive concern with the idea of nonstandard definitions in an argument is that someone is arguing in bad faith – trolling – using the Humpty Dumpty philosophy to irritate their correspondents and prolong the troll.
This. If you think of a discussion less as a combat and more as an attempt to mutually explore a concept, its less about defining your terms and more about discovering what you mean by a term, and sometimes finding better or more appropriate terms.
There is nothing wrong with a non-standard usage, but theres also nothing wrong with saying "I think what you are descibing is more like [other term], and then there can be a discussion about to what degree each term applies. Thats the essence of the dialectic (as I use that term!)