I dunno. Not sure you’re “giving the Scott Alexander his due,” as they say. In his hypothetical, he’s saying that this person doesn’t CARE what the ordinary usage of the word is.
Doesn’t that kind of make it useless to argue about the first type of argument?
Also, it seems like in his particular example, it would be useless to argue about the second thing, too, because there’s nothing particularly immoral about that definition beyond the fact that it’s simply incorrect.
The sentence “There’s no disputing the definition of words” is strictly speaking incorrect. But I think maybe he means, “There’s no disputing the definition of words with someone who’s arbitrarily committed to an idiosyncratic definition.” All you can say to that person is, “Well, that’s not how most people use the word.”
I don't really disagree with that, and I discussed it when talking about stipulative definitions. That's why the subtitle said "Contra Scott Alexander a little bit." I think probably we don't disagree much if at all.
I’ve just recently experienced the sense of futility that he’s talking about with someone who maintained that the UK is just as unfree as Stalinist Russia because the UK has universal healthcare. All I could say was, “Well, I think we just understand freedom differently” and leave it at that.
I think that there are replies you can give. Such as:
"presumably the kind of freedom we're talking about is the one that is morally valuable. Now, would you rather live in Stalinist Russia or the modern UK?"
When someone says you can’t argue about definitions, I typically take them to mean that there are no robust, stance-independently correct definitions, not that you can’t be correct or incorrect about ordinary usage or that you can’t argue for why a word should or shouldn’t be defined a certain way. If that’s what he means, I agree. If he’s affirming the latter two, I disagree. Either way, it’d be useful to clarify.
I mean, they're not independent of anyone's stances, but they are independent of your personal stances. If you define the word dog as meaning fish (and aren't speaking Hebrew) you're just using language wrong, unless you're speaking stipulatively.
If by “using language wrong” you mean “speaking differently from your linguistic community”, then I agree. What I deny is a move from this to “therefore, you have a false belief”; I can acknowledge and accept that I’m speaking differently from my linguistic community.
You’re right that we can argue about definitions. But in the passage you quote, Alexander doesn’t say we can’t argue about definitions; he says there’s no point in doing so. (Presumably, in context, he means there’s often no point in doing so when conversing with social justice warriors.)
By the way, we HAVE discovered that 100,000 puppies are thrown into a furnace in a distant galaxy every time someone uses the word “table.” Since the universe contains infinitely many galaxies, and since the (epistemic) probability, for any given time and for any given distant galaxy, that 100,000 puppies are thrown into a furnace at that time in that galaxy is nonzero, the probability, given that someone uses the word “table” at t1, that 100,000 puppies are thrown into a furnace in some distant galaxy at t1 is 1.
(I jest, of course. And anyway, this wouldn’t show that puppies are ever tossed into furnaces BECAUSE we Earthlings use the word “table”.)
I'm not sure. I mean, we can certainly argue about how words are in fact used, or how they should be used. But why make the further claim that there is also a substantive dispute about a definition here?
It seems like we can perfectly well account for the things you mention without assuming this: People have all sorts of connotations with certain symbols and sounds, so it makes sense to drag your feet sometimes (e.g. something being racist raises connotations of it being bad, so you want to police how people use that word a little). Still, why think that there is a genuine descriptive matter at stake here?
The comparison with uncontroversially factual claims (like stipulating atheism) seems a bit off to me. When I assume a fact like this, the states of affairs I can consistently hold are true given this assumption is different than if it were held open. But if I stipulate some strange definition, I would just have to combine words differently to speak about the same things--that is, nothing substantive is changed or conceded about the issue if you stipulate a definition (unless the issue is about word meaning).
I’m not sure many people would take the other side of your argument. Personally, my formative take on “arguing about definitions” was Thouless’ observation that we often engage in arguments about definitions without realizing it. I think his example was an argument about what prepositions describe how squirrels run around a tree. You can’t argue about the physical relationship between the squirrels and the tree if you don’t agree on the meaning of the words you’re using to describe physical relationships.
What’s not sensible is when some person or group, due to personal preference, prescriptively seeks to redefine an old word—purposefully jettisoning its accepted usage in favor of some unaccepted new usage. Two silly things result from this:
1. It retroactively fucks up every past argument, theory or instance that depends on the word. You just intentionally undermined the ability of past people to communicate with present and future people. That’s super lame.
2. Now most people who adhere to common usage for its breadth of understanding, don’t know what you mean by the word. This isn’t their fault. It’s yours. By confounding shared understanding, you’ve reduced everyone’s ability to communicate with each other and literally increased misunderstanding.
Instead of repurposing a humble set of letters that derive all their power from their current meaning in a vain effort to leverage that power, simply invent a new set that means precisely what you wished the old set meant.
If words such as “woman” or “violence” or “privacy” or “misinformation” are being more commonly used in a new manner, language will change naturally, as it always has, without some self-appointed word cop making pronouncements about what these words “should” mean, but currently don’t. There is no central document to update when you want a word to be redefined. General usage is the document itself.
If you think words should be used to increase shared understanding it’s important that you don’t intentionally undermine their ability to do so.
Good essay, BB. Now, I think people who dislike arguing about definitions (like Scott and Confucius) believe such arguments shouldn't be had because they only serve to muddle things up. Think of the Communist who argues the Democratic Republic of Germany was a democracy. Wouldn't you agree that's a problem? Wouldn't it be best if the Commie argues for his preferred system on its own merits rather than trying to coopt a popular word?
I agree lots of debates about definitions are not productive! We should often be willing to say "fine, I don't care what you call this thing, let's just argue about its merits."
There could be a situation where the definitions of man and woman need updating. But doing so to mollify the feelings of Janissaries is not one of them.
I dunno. Not sure you’re “giving the Scott Alexander his due,” as they say. In his hypothetical, he’s saying that this person doesn’t CARE what the ordinary usage of the word is.
Doesn’t that kind of make it useless to argue about the first type of argument?
Also, it seems like in his particular example, it would be useless to argue about the second thing, too, because there’s nothing particularly immoral about that definition beyond the fact that it’s simply incorrect.
The sentence “There’s no disputing the definition of words” is strictly speaking incorrect. But I think maybe he means, “There’s no disputing the definition of words with someone who’s arbitrarily committed to an idiosyncratic definition.” All you can say to that person is, “Well, that’s not how most people use the word.”
I don't really disagree with that, and I discussed it when talking about stipulative definitions. That's why the subtitle said "Contra Scott Alexander a little bit." I think probably we don't disagree much if at all.
Sure, that makes sense!
I’ve just recently experienced the sense of futility that he’s talking about with someone who maintained that the UK is just as unfree as Stalinist Russia because the UK has universal healthcare. All I could say was, “Well, I think we just understand freedom differently” and leave it at that.
I think that there are replies you can give. Such as:
"presumably the kind of freedom we're talking about is the one that is morally valuable. Now, would you rather live in Stalinist Russia or the modern UK?"
When someone says you can’t argue about definitions, I typically take them to mean that there are no robust, stance-independently correct definitions, not that you can’t be correct or incorrect about ordinary usage or that you can’t argue for why a word should or shouldn’t be defined a certain way. If that’s what he means, I agree. If he’s affirming the latter two, I disagree. Either way, it’d be useful to clarify.
I mean, they're not independent of anyone's stances, but they are independent of your personal stances. If you define the word dog as meaning fish (and aren't speaking Hebrew) you're just using language wrong, unless you're speaking stipulatively.
If by “using language wrong” you mean “speaking differently from your linguistic community”, then I agree. What I deny is a move from this to “therefore, you have a false belief”; I can acknowledge and accept that I’m speaking differently from my linguistic community.
Well a way of speaking can't be false as it's non-propositional. But statements about what words mean can be wrong.
You’re right that we can argue about definitions. But in the passage you quote, Alexander doesn’t say we can’t argue about definitions; he says there’s no point in doing so. (Presumably, in context, he means there’s often no point in doing so when conversing with social justice warriors.)
By the way, we HAVE discovered that 100,000 puppies are thrown into a furnace in a distant galaxy every time someone uses the word “table.” Since the universe contains infinitely many galaxies, and since the (epistemic) probability, for any given time and for any given distant galaxy, that 100,000 puppies are thrown into a furnace at that time in that galaxy is nonzero, the probability, given that someone uses the word “table” at t1, that 100,000 puppies are thrown into a furnace in some distant galaxy at t1 is 1.
(I jest, of course. And anyway, this wouldn’t show that puppies are ever tossed into furnaces BECAUSE we Earthlings use the word “table”.)
I'm not sure. I mean, we can certainly argue about how words are in fact used, or how they should be used. But why make the further claim that there is also a substantive dispute about a definition here?
It seems like we can perfectly well account for the things you mention without assuming this: People have all sorts of connotations with certain symbols and sounds, so it makes sense to drag your feet sometimes (e.g. something being racist raises connotations of it being bad, so you want to police how people use that word a little). Still, why think that there is a genuine descriptive matter at stake here?
The comparison with uncontroversially factual claims (like stipulating atheism) seems a bit off to me. When I assume a fact like this, the states of affairs I can consistently hold are true given this assumption is different than if it were held open. But if I stipulate some strange definition, I would just have to combine words differently to speak about the same things--that is, nothing substantive is changed or conceded about the issue if you stipulate a definition (unless the issue is about word meaning).
I’m not sure many people would take the other side of your argument. Personally, my formative take on “arguing about definitions” was Thouless’ observation that we often engage in arguments about definitions without realizing it. I think his example was an argument about what prepositions describe how squirrels run around a tree. You can’t argue about the physical relationship between the squirrels and the tree if you don’t agree on the meaning of the words you’re using to describe physical relationships.
What’s not sensible is when some person or group, due to personal preference, prescriptively seeks to redefine an old word—purposefully jettisoning its accepted usage in favor of some unaccepted new usage. Two silly things result from this:
1. It retroactively fucks up every past argument, theory or instance that depends on the word. You just intentionally undermined the ability of past people to communicate with present and future people. That’s super lame.
2. Now most people who adhere to common usage for its breadth of understanding, don’t know what you mean by the word. This isn’t their fault. It’s yours. By confounding shared understanding, you’ve reduced everyone’s ability to communicate with each other and literally increased misunderstanding.
Instead of repurposing a humble set of letters that derive all their power from their current meaning in a vain effort to leverage that power, simply invent a new set that means precisely what you wished the old set meant.
If words such as “woman” or “violence” or “privacy” or “misinformation” are being more commonly used in a new manner, language will change naturally, as it always has, without some self-appointed word cop making pronouncements about what these words “should” mean, but currently don’t. There is no central document to update when you want a word to be redefined. General usage is the document itself.
If you think words should be used to increase shared understanding it’s important that you don’t intentionally undermine their ability to do so.
Good essay, BB. Now, I think people who dislike arguing about definitions (like Scott and Confucius) believe such arguments shouldn't be had because they only serve to muddle things up. Think of the Communist who argues the Democratic Republic of Germany was a democracy. Wouldn't you agree that's a problem? Wouldn't it be best if the Commie argues for his preferred system on its own merits rather than trying to coopt a popular word?
I agree lots of debates about definitions are not productive! We should often be willing to say "fine, I don't care what you call this thing, let's just argue about its merits."
Dear Bentham,
A post directed at you, arguing in favour of moral particularism, like supporting charities in your own country. I would appreciate a reply.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-166739964
There could be a situation where the definitions of man and woman need updating. But doing so to mollify the feelings of Janissaries is not one of them.