• Judaka
    1.7k
    I'm unfamiliar with a term for words or terms comprised of other words, but that's largely what I'm referring to as "Intelligibly Named Terms" (INTs). For the sake of clarity, I'll differentiate "Intelligibly Ruled Terms" (IRTs), as terms that contain a meaningful prefix or suffix such as "-ism","-ology","-less","-ist","-phobia", "pre-", "un-", "anti-" and so on.

    I want to explore to what extent we can understand such terms as mere names, considering that they're being referred to with a meaningful term. Some questions I'll be exploring are:
    1. To what extent does a term's name influence our perceptions of the thing being referred to?
    2. How and to what extent must an INT be justified?
    3. Can an INT be challenged, and if so, when, based on how one interprets its meaning?

    Many INTs are named intuitively, especially in technology. See words such as touchscreen, password, web browser, screensaver, self-driving car, streaming service and virtual reality, which can be justified quite intuitively as names given what they refer to.

    However, we might debate under what conditions it's reasonable to refer to a car as a "Self-Driving Car". The term itself implies that the car has the capability to drive itself without the need for constant human intervention. However, the extent of that capability and the degree to which human involvement is reduced can lead to different expectations and perceptions. If a car was marketed as a "Self-Driving Car", and people's expectations of what that meant weren't met, it seems reasonable to dispute that the car was indeed a "Self-Driving Car" and not just a car with some assisting capabilities.

    In gaming, there are many INTs with strong connotations such as "Pay-To-Win", "Artificial Difficulty", "Padding", "Grinding", "Fetch Quests" and so on.

    Artificial difficulty refers to the use of numerical changes in the strength or quantity of enemies, and as I interpret it, the term "artificial" suggests that this isn't a legitimate way to increase difficulty. I think it's clear, but I'm happy to hear alternative views, that by referring to this increase in difficulty as "Artificial Difficulty" one is being disparaging. It wouldn't be clear that the reference to a difficulty increase of this nature was a problem if the term were descriptively named "Stat-Based Difficulty" or positively named "Superb Difficulty". All the term does is refer to a practice, but it does so disparagingly, is the claim necessarily implying that the practice is bad using the reasoning that the difficulty is "artificial"?

    If one complained about "Artificial Difficulty" and justified themselves by saying that the practice was lazy and unimaginative, would that be legitimate? Must the reasoning justify the negative perspective, or must it justify that the difficulty is indeed "Artificial", or both? Not necessarily looking to debate this specific question; it's just an example to ask about the rules of INTs.

    Philosophy contains a plethora of INTs and IRTs but many such terms refer to sophisticated and complex arguments and ideas. There are so many examples to choose from; to name a few: "Free Will", "Self-Determination", "Personal Autonomy", "Moral Responsibility", "Social Contract" and so on. These terms could be understood as mere references to specific ideas, but as previous examples may show, I think that's unreasonable. However, it might also be unreasonable for one, to for example, interpret what "Free Will" means to them, and dispute the claim while ignoring the content of the complex arguments, but only because they disagree with the INT.

    The issue I take with INTs such as "Free Will" is that although the term refers to something highly specific, the term is ultimately comprised of two simple words, both controversial and highly meaningful. I think it's unreasonable to insist that it's just a name. Just as "Artificial Difficulty" and "Self-Driving Car" are meaningful terms that meaningfully reference, "Free Will" has its own set of implications, connotations and expectations. If the term was changed to "Some Free Choice" or "Partially Free Will", would that not represent a highly meaningful change? Precisely because it would change those implications, connotations and expectations of the term, despite it nonetheless referring to the exact same arguments and ideas as before?

    I've presented a large number of problems and arguments throughout this OP, but I'm happy for them to be merely treated as examples for answering the three questions I asked earlier. Alternatively, feel free to just answer the question in your own way; What are the Rules for INTs?
  • Skalidris
    131


    Maybe I didn't understand your point but why should "INTs" be treated any differently than "IRTs"?

    In the end it's just easier for most people to guess to meaning an INT rather than an IRT because not everyone has basic knowledge of etymology. The impact of the first judgement/guess a person makes when they encounter a new word is quite small compared to the intuition that will later come as the person hears that word in conversations. Whether we call free will: "partial free will" or "flying unicorn", if there is a definition and that most people talk about it, there will be some kind of unified intuition of what that means, regardless of how it's called.

    But of course, it's easier to remember the meaning of the word if it is straightforward. And if we talked about "flying unicorn" to refer to "free will", people would most likely create a synonym that is easier to remember, and that synonym (which would most likely be similar to free will) would take over the flying unicorn. Similarly, if the name of a concept contains too many words, like "partial free will", people will only remember a portion of it and that's what will stay.
  • Judaka
    1.7k

    The impact of the first judgement/guess a person makes when they encounter a new word is quite small compared to the intuition that will later come as the person hears that word in conversations.Skalidris

    The argument that I've made throughout the OP is that INTs aren't and can't be just meaningless names. I went through INTs such as self-driving cars or pay-to-win as examples where the words of the INT are crucially important to the term. The words are important in establishing an INT's truth conditions and in what it means for an INT to be applicable. That a self-driving car should be self-driving.

    "Free Will" is an intelligible, meaningful set of words, which you interestingly aren't even capitalising, but simply referring to as "free will". An INT that's grammatically indistinguishable from ordinary speech, that uses normal English words in a standard way but has its own distinct set of rules.

    The reason why I oppose this is because I think inevitably, we will use the words normally while talking about an INT. I'm justified in saying that a "flying unicorn" can fly, or that a self-driving car can drive itself.

    If someone calls their hotel the "flying unicorn", that's fine, whatever, no one will mistakenly think that should be taken literally. But "Free Will" is so closely related to "free will", that I'd go as far as to say they're linked. That "Partial Free Will" would be a highly meaningful change to the name, it would change the claim. Just like "Partially self-driving car" is different from "Self-driving car".

    It seems like you'd be okay if I just create a term called "Purple" and have it refer to the colour blue? Words can mean anything so long as they're part of a term?
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