2 – Vague Definition
p. 83 This chapter discusses the error in thinking called vague definition. Correct definition leads to the truth. Vague definition leads to error. By the end of the chapter, you should have a working knowledge of some of the kinds of definition—generic, divisional, and by specific criteria or example—and you should be able to uncover the hidden meanings behind what people say.
Confusion may arise because many words have several meanings. In a given context, the meaning of a word must remain constant, or there will be confusion. Confusion may also arise because individual words have different kinds of meanings—a denotive meaning (the explicit or intensive meaning), a connotive meaning (the more extensive idea or notion suggested or associated with the word), a word history (which suggests a meaning), and a word atmosphere (tone), all of which conspire to give a word shades, intimations, allusions, indications, and refinements of meaning, some of which under certain circumstances can be misleading.
Correct use of words leads to precision of expression, correct thinking, and correct conclusions. Incorrect, sloppy, or deceptive use of words leads to imprecision of expression, incorrect thinking, incorrect conclusions, and sometimes fraud and deception. Attention to definition will help you become acquainted with how to better discover truth and deal with reality. Attention to definition will help you say what you mean and help you avoid saying what you don’t mean.
p. 84 Words are important. Did you have any doubt? Words are especially important for complex human thinking.
As demonstrated in the previous chapter, animals think, probably without words. Animals probably think by crude associations of one concept with another, as in the cow example where in the cow’s brain PAIN = ELECTRIC FENCE, ELECTRIC FENCE = PAIN.
Like little animals, very young children probably think without words. Some of us adults know that we sometimes think without words, too. I drove to Houston yesterday, but for the life of me I don’t know how I did it. I didn’t consciously tell my foot to brake or go when appropriate, nor did I do any serious thinking about keeping away from other cars and avoiding accidents. My brain handled much of my driving at some subconscious level without the use of words. That’s OK for small tasks like driving, but to think about more sophisticated things my brain needs words.
The subtlety of human thought owes a lot to language. Soliloquies, of which dramatists are so fond, may appear absurd, but in fact the only thing that makes them ridiculous is that the actors declaim their thoughts aloud. Most of us are always declaiming soliloquies to ourselves, discussing issues, planning what to do, and appraising situations.
How do you address yourself? I usually address myself as “you” when I am unhappy with myself or with what I did, as in “Oh, God, Patten, you really screwed up that time.” And I usually address myself as “I” when something good is involved, as in “I want an ice cream.” How do you usually talk to yourself?
The process of holding a kind of debate with oneself is an ordinary way of solving problems. That it is so illustrates the dependence of thought on words. Since our thoughts so depend on words, proper thinking requires that the words be used correctly. Otherwise we can’t arrive at real significance. The problem is that many words have several definitions or common uses. Confusion can arise if one of the definitions is used by one party while the other party embraces a different definition.
For example: Whether alcohol is a food, a poison, a drug, or part of the sacrament of transubstantiation depends on the definitions of those things and how they are applied to alcohol.
Grain ethyl alcohol has a calorie content of seven kilocalories per gram. If we define food as a substance that when ingested is capable of being used to produce heat or body energy, then alcohol is certainly a food. If we define food as a substance that when ingested is capable of p. 85 being converted into body amino acids, proteins, fats, and even carbohydrates as needed, then alcohol is certainly a food.
If we define poison as a substance that if ingested may under certain specified circumstances kill a person, then alcohol is certainly a poison. If we define drug as a substance capable of altering the function of the human brain, then alcohol is certainly a drug. If we believe that the wine used in the Catholic Church is (despite all evidence and appearances to the contrary) actually changed with its alcohol content into the blood of Jesus Christ, then alcohol under certain specific circumstances is a sacrament. So, alcohol is either a food, a poison, a drug, or a sacrament, depending on how we define those things.
Well, which is it?
How much sense would it make for two people to debate whether alcohol is a food or not, if one of those persons had in mind that alcohol was a poison and the other believed that it was a gasoline additive to protect the environment?
Definitions therefore are crucial to clear thinking and reasoned discussion. If that’s true, then to be entirely consistent, we should start off with an understanding of what we mean by definition. We should start off with a definition of definition.
Definition divides itself into two main avenues: genus and division. Genus sounds academic or biological, but it is really not. A genus (generic) definition can usually be spotted by the fact that the definition (meaning) is stated in sentence form. Example: Texas penal code paragraph 1.07: “A firearm is any device designed, made or adapted to expel a projectile through a barrel by using the energy generated by an explosion or burning substance or any device readily convertible to that use.”
So if I am caught carrying a pellet gun that shoots 22-caliber pellets powered by a carbon dioxide cylinder, I can’t be arrested for carrying a firearm. The pellet gun does not conform to the genus definition of a firearm. A dart gun doesn’t meet the definition either. But a zip gun that was not originally a firearm but has been adapted to work like a firearm will fall within the definition and send me to jail for up to ten years.
Note the difference a few words can make. A few words can make all the difference in the world. A few words can decide my fate: whether I am culpable or not, whether I go to jail or don’t. Definition is important. No question about it.
Principle: Definitions count and often count plenty.
p. 86 From which follows:
Lesson: Pay attention to the definitions.
Consider abortion. In the matter of abortion, everything hangs on the definition of the creature subject to the abortion. If we define the object of abortion as a human being, then we condemn abortion as premeditated murder or manslaughter (depending on the definition of murder and manslaughter). If we define the fetus as something not human, say, a kind of parasite because it can’t sustain (at the time of the abortion) a human existence independent of the mother, we can shift the ground of discourse to a question of freedom of choice. So, whether we might favor abortion or freedom of choice might depend on what we consider the generic definition of life.
Indeed, for centuries, the Catholic Church permitted abortion up to the time of the quickening (about the end of the first trimester when fetal movement first was felt) because that is when Saint Thomas Aquinas concluded that life for the fetus actually began. Recently, the Catholic Church has changed its position on the issue by changing the definition of when life begins. It now maintains that life starts when the sperm enters the egg at the moment of conception. Since life starts at conception (according to this definition), the Catholic Church has concluded that any kind of abortion kills a human being. As killing a human is wrong, abortion is therefore wrong.
The change in definition looks suspicious because Thomas Aquinas is still considered a doctor of the church and is in fact the patron saint of Roman Catholic schools.
Definition by division is a form of definition that proceeds in bite-sized pieces, usually in a numbered list. The genus definition of a firearm could have been defined divisionally as follows:
A device shall be considered a firearm if:
1. It is made, designed, or adapted to expel a projectile.
; 2. The projectile is expelled through a barrel.
3. The energy generated to expel the projectile is explosive or by burning a substance.
In divisional definition, further refinements can be made by specifying what things are excluded from the definition. As, for instance, “No part of this statute shall be construed to mean that a BB gun or a dart p. 87 gun or pellet gun powered by compressed air or other gas is a firearm. Antique and curio firearms made before 1899 are excluded.”
Divisional definitions are quite important in the law. Conviction or acquittal often depends on them, on the strict application of a definition.
Texas penal code paragraph 46.035, section 5, says it is unlawful to carry a handgun in an amusement park, even if the person carrying the handgun has a specific state of Texas concealed handgun license.
That seems clear enough until one consults subsection f of the same penal code, which states, “in this section ‘Amusement park’ means a permanent indoor or outdoor facility or park where amusement rides are available for use by the public that is located in a county with a population of more than 1 million, encompasses at least 75 acres in surface area, is enclosed with access only through controlled entries, is open for operation more than 120 days in each calendar year, and has security guards on the premises at all times.”
Wow! If the amusement park where the gun is carried fails to meet just one of those many criteria, the carrying of the gun there by a person holding a license is legal. By the definition of negatives, we find that if the park is not permanent or has no rides, or the rides are not available to the public, or the park is located in a county with fewer than one million people (most counties in Texas), is open for only 119 days a year, is smaller than seventy-five acres in area, or doesn’t have twenty-four-hour security, it is not an amusement park according to this statute and therefore is not covered by the penal law section.
Law is like that. It has lots of exceptions and weird turnings and strange twists. Law is full of exceptions. Aristotle said, “The law is reason without passion.”[1] I say that law is reason punctuated by exceptions. Others say law is mainly exceptions because it often turns and twists on obscure definitions, the reasons for which were probably known at one time to the legislators who voted for the specific language of the statute. In many cases, the reasons are no longer known even by those who voted for them.
After enactment, law itself, not the goals to be advanced by law, becomes the focus. That is when the lawyers have their field day.
The concealed handgun illustration above shows how precise rules do not close the loopholes. It happens to be the other way around. Loopholes exist only because the rules are so precise. The United States Constitution, a short document of general principles, has few loopholes. That is why it has held up so well and lasted so long.
p. 88 Among the many kinds of definition, we find definition by synonym, example, or specific criteria. For instance, how can we define anxiety?
Anxiety is feeling nervous. This is a definition by the criterion of synonym. Anxiety is what I feel when they take my blood pressure at the doctor’s office. This is a definition by example. Anxiety is the subjective feeling of nameless dread associated with increased activity of the autonomic nervous system. This is a definition by psychological and physiologic criteria.
Here are some more illustrations of definition and its application to situations.
1. Property claims were sometimes specified in divisional terms. You owned a property by right of conquest (in olden times), by purchase from the legal owner (notice purchases from non-owners and from illegal owners are excluded), or by inheritance, marriage, or contract, as in the settlement of a gambling debt. If you have lived on a property for twenty years and have had no attempts of the real owner to move you off, you can own a property by right of adverse possession or squatter’s right, and so on. That list is the divisional definition of the right of ownership. If you can show you meet one of those criteria, the courts will recognize your property right and the sheriff will come out and arrest trespassers.
2. Lots of medical diagnoses are based on divisional definitions. Consider the diagnosis of systemic lupus:
a. Malar rash
b. Discoid rash
c. Photosensitivity
d. Oral ulcers
e. Arthritis
f. Serositis
g. Renal disorder
h. Neurologic disorder
i. Hematologic disorder
j. Immunologic disorder
k. Antinuclear antibodies
“If four of these are present at any time during the course of the disease, a diagnosis of systemic lupus can be made with 98% certainty and 97% sensitivity,” says Harrison’s textbook of medicine.[2]
p. 89 Sounds terribly scientific. Doesn’t it? Or does it? What if a patient had only three of the items and yet at autopsy was found to have died of lupus? I had a patient like that. That woman had lupus by one definition (autopsy fact), but she didn’t have it by another definition, the standard medical textbook definition. In that case, should we conclude that the patient died of a disease she didn’t have? See? This is the old “alcohol is a food, drug, or poison” problem, applied to diagnosis of disease.
How about the generic definition of lupus? Will the generic definition help clarify the diagnostic situation in my dead patient? You decide. When you do, let me know. Generic definition: “Systemic lupus erythematosis (SLE) is a disease of unknown etiology in which tissues and cells are damaged by pathogenic autoantibodies and immune complexes.”[3]
No wonder doctors seem to be always arguing about who has what and what should be done. Many of those arguments arise from legitimate differences in understanding the nature of the disease. Many of the arguments arise from legitimate use of different definitions of disease, and many arise from legitimate differences of judgment, experience, or (can this be?) conventions and stylized forms of reasoning or logic (or what they think is logic).
Principle: Some medical terms have little or no real meaning because their relationship or correspondence to reality is dubious.
While we are on the subject of medical terms, I should mention that a surprising number of medical terms that are thrown at patients daily have little meaning. The skeptic might even claim they have surprisingly little meaning by design. The skeptic might claim that they are designed to conceal the doctor’s ignorance and befuddle the patient.
But that’s another story. The principle is clear:
Principle: Medical diagnosis is often based on highly questionable definitions that may or may not adequately reflect the reality situation.
From which follows:
Lesson: Medicine is not a science. It is subject to large limitations because of, among other things, the vague defip. 90nitions, most of which arise from incomplete, inaccurate, and, in some cases, faulty knowledge.
I’m not criticizing medicine or beating up on doctors. Why would I do that? I myself am a doctor. So are my wife and my daughter and my son-in-law. I am just helping you face the facts. The current state of medical knowledge is probably less than you and most people assume.
Whether doctors are arguing about a disease or a diagnosis, or others are arguing about abortion or something else, a surprising number of arguments arise from the failure of disputants to define the terms they use. They believe themselves to be debating questions of fact whereas the real issue is the definition of the words used.
In the controversy about abortions, you can define a human being as possessing the following characteristics: a head, two eyes, two feet, a heart, and so forth, and then you can show that the embryo at the moment of conception possesses none of these things; therefore, it is not, by that definition, human.
On the other hand, if you define a human as a living thing that has a complete lifetime supply of human genetic material and is, genetically speaking, a perfected and independent creature, then any embryo from the instant of conception forward qualifies as human, as
does an in vitro fertilized egg, as does a stem cell.
The abortion controversy is a disagreement concerning the social decision about the beginning of life. There is no novel objective fact to be discovered in this sphere, no original biological research to be done. What is needed is a philosophical reflection that resolves the issue to the satisfaction of everyone. That reflection will be a generally accepted decision about where, in the continuous process from fertilization to birth, it would be best to draw the line between merely biological and genuinely human existence. Too much is at stake for this determination to be groundless or arbitrary.
Is the tomato a fruit, a vegetable, or a berry? On a more mundane level, whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable depends on the definition used. Certainly it is a question that has encouraged controversy. My mother always considered the debate a matter of fact, but I forget what side of the fence she was on. To me, the problem is merely verbal. If you define fruit as the part of a plant that encloses the seed, then the tomato is clearly a fruit. If you define vegetable as something edible that comes from a garden, then the tomato is a vegetable. Botanically the tomato is p. 91 a berry, but according to the United States Supreme Court decision in 1880, for tax purposes, the tomato is not a fruit or a berry but a veritable vegetable. Fruit, berry, or vegetable? Which is it?
Who knows?
It just depends on what we mean. It just depends, as do so many things in life, on definition.
Just because the government or some officer thereof defines something some way, that doesn’t make it so.
Ronald Reagan, as I recall, urged school lunch programs to identify ketchup as a vegetable in order to meet federal nutrition guidelines for school lunches. Most of us would identify ketchup as a seasoned sauce of puree consistency, the principle ingredient of which is usually tomatoes but sometimes another foodstuff (like mushrooms). Despite the president’s opinion, ketchup is not a vegetable. Reagan got into further trouble over tomato ketchup when he applied it to his cottage cheese, saying that the stuff was awful without ketchup. In consequence, he lost the Wisconsin vote.
Truth, Knowledge, or Just Plain Bull: How to tell the difference Page 10
