I say “strategic” because it is serving that strategic purpose in a debate, not as a statement of intent. This use is similar to discussion of, eg, an evolutionary strategy of short life histories, which doesn’t imply the short-life history creature understands or intends anything it’s doing.
It sounds like normal usage might be our crux. Would you agree with this? IE that if most people in most situations would interpret my definition as normal usage and yours as a redefinition project, we should use mine, and vice versa for yours?
I don’t think it’s the crux, no. I don’t accept ordinary language philosophy, which canonizes popular confusions. There are some contexts where using ordinary language is important, such as when writing popular news articles, but that isn’t all of the contexts.
I say “strategic” because it is serving that strategic purpose in a debate, not as a statement of intent. This use is similar to discussion of, eg, an evolutionary strategy of short life histories, which doesn’t imply the short-life history creature understands or intends anything it’s doing.
It sounds like normal usage might be our crux. Would you agree with this? IE that if most people in most situations would interpret my definition as normal usage and yours as a redefinition project, we should use mine, and vice versa for yours?
I don’t think it’s the crux, no. I don’t accept ordinary language philosophy, which canonizes popular confusions. There are some contexts where using ordinary language is important, such as when writing popular news articles, but that isn’t all of the contexts.