“The No True Scotsman fallacy” is often cited when people do things like defining X not as Y, but Y when Y works.* This is the (explicit) ideal (that people may admit to). While those asking “What is X” are probably interested in “When does Y work?”, if X/a group that defines itself based on X (and refers to itself with the label ‘X’), then since their goal is to achieve that ideal, they themselves would very much like to know/and are working on “what is necessary to make Y work/happen?”. Thus ‘Y is not working’ may be (seen as) a criticism of (the group) X—and spark some debate. (The ideal may be a motte and bailey, or fake.)
To make this more concrete here is an example: “Rationality is about winning.” (I’m still waiting for the “X is not about Y” article “Rationality is not about winning”.) What other things are (or can be) defined in terms of ‘when they work’?
*Or more specifically (see the wikipedia article) ‘people who like X’ think of ‘the examples of X they like’ when they hear ‘X’.
“The No True Scotsman fallacy” is often cited when people do things like defining X not as Y, but Y when Y works.* This is the (explicit) ideal (that people may admit to). While those asking “What is X” are probably interested in “When does Y work?”, if X/a group that defines itself based on X (and refers to itself with the label ‘X’), then since their goal is to achieve that ideal, they themselves would very much like to know/and are working on “what is necessary to make Y work/happen?”. Thus ‘Y is not working’ may be (seen as) a criticism of (the group) X—and spark some debate. (The ideal may be a motte and bailey, or fake.)
To make this more concrete here is an example: “Rationality is about winning.” (I’m still waiting for the “X is not about Y” article “Rationality is not about winning”.) What other things are (or can be) defined in terms of ‘when they work’?
*Or more specifically (see the wikipedia article) ‘people who like X’ think of ‘the examples of X they like’ when they hear ‘X’.