This was a really clarifying post for me. I had gotten to the point of noticing that “What is X?” debates were really just debates over the definition of X, but I hadn’t yet taken the next step of asking why people care about how X is defined.
I think another great example of a disguised query is the recurring debate, “Is this art?” People have really widely varying definitions of “art” (e.g., some people’s definition includes “aesthetically interesting,” other people’s definition merely requires “conceptually interesting”) -- and in one sense, once both parties explain how they use the word “art,” the debate should resolve pretty quickly.
But of course, since it’s a disguised query, the question “Is this art?” should really be followed up with the question “Why does it matter?” As far as I can tell, the disguised query in this case is usually “does this deserve to be taken seriously?” which can be translated in practice into, “Is this the sort of thing that deserves to be exhibited in a gallery?” And that’s certainly a real, non-semantic debate. But we can have that debate without ever needing to decide whether to apply the label “art” to something—in fact, I think the debate would be much clearer if we left the word “art” out of it altogether.
This was a really clarifying post for me. I had gotten to the point of noticing that “What is X?” debates were really just debates over the definition of X, but I hadn’t yet taken the next step of asking why people care about how X is defined.
I think another great example of a disguised query is the recurring debate, “Is this art?” People have really widely varying definitions of “art” (e.g., some people’s definition includes “aesthetically interesting,” other people’s definition merely requires “conceptually interesting”) -- and in one sense, once both parties explain how they use the word “art,” the debate should resolve pretty quickly.
But of course, since it’s a disguised query, the question “Is this art?” should really be followed up with the question “Why does it matter?” As far as I can tell, the disguised query in this case is usually “does this deserve to be taken seriously?” which can be translated in practice into, “Is this the sort of thing that deserves to be exhibited in a gallery?” And that’s certainly a real, non-semantic debate. But we can have that debate without ever needing to decide whether to apply the label “art” to something—in fact, I think the debate would be much clearer if we left the word “art” out of it altogether.
I’ve elaborated on this topic on Rationally Speaking: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2010/03/is-this-art-and-why-thats-wrong.html …and I cite this LW post. Thanks, Eliezer.