4 ms·

What about "to be" shows thinking that needs unmuddying? Why should we consider sentences like "the cat is an animal" or "the cat is furry" problematic?

ineptech 5y ago
Nothing, unless someone disagrees; once someone argues that the cat isn't furry, stop using 'is' and it will be clearer what you really disagree about. Consider a more realistic example, e.g. "Russia is a dictatorship" vs "No it isn't". What are these people arguing about? A fact (they disagree over which things Russia has done), an opinion (they agree on what Russia has done but disagree on whether those things were bad), semantics (they agree on what Russia did and how bad it was, but disagree on whether that meets the criteria of a dictatorship), or something else? Using e-prime isn't a panacea against this sort of confusion, but it is almost always helpful.
- tom_mellior 5y ago
  Interesting, thanks. It's true that "hot takes" of the form "X is Y" become a bit more difficult without the copula. Not sure how much we win by saying "A dictator rules Russia" vs. "Russia is ruled by a dictator", but I can see how just the fact of having to think more carefully about the formulation can contribute to a more reasoned discussion. It's a pity that the Wikipedia article fails to explain this point.
jonnycomputer 5y ago
I have two, somewhat contradictory, responses. The first is that it is not "to be" that is the issue, it is that students very often do not articulate themselves very well, and one way to encourage them to be more precise is to take away their linguistic crutches. If you can get them to ask to themselves, "how can I say this another way?", then you've already gone a long way to improving their writing, and by extension, their thinking. My second answer is ontological. The "is a" relationship is much more useful in mathematics and computer science than it turns out to be in the empirical, social and psychological sciences, where even the ontological categories that one discusses may be disputed. Instead of saying, "a cat is a mammal", it seems much more useful to talk about statistical distributions of traits shared by or not shared by cats and other mammals. And then, very often, our categories can obscure truths, e.g. the truth that biological sex is more complicated, multidimensional and continuous, that the binary categories "is a" encourages us to use. Historically, much of science begins by creating ontologies; basic questions are "what kinds of things are they?"; but at some point they can also become crutches. I think we see this in modern evolutionary biology quite clearly, with a move toward "population thinking" rather than categorical ontologies.

ineptech 5y ago

Nothing, unless someone disagrees; once someone argues that the cat isn't furry, stop using 'is' and it will be clearer what you really disagree about. Consider a more realistic example, e.g. "Russia is a dictatorship" vs "No it isn't". What are these people arguing about? A fact (they disagree over which things Russia has done), an opinion (they agree on what Russia has done but disagree on whether those things were bad), semantics (they agree on what Russia did and how bad it was, but disagree on whether that meets the criteria of a dictatorship), or something else? Using e-prime isn't a panacea against this sort of confusion, but it is almost always helpful.

tom_mellior 5y ago
Interesting, thanks. It's true that "hot takes" of the form "X is Y" become a bit more difficult without the copula. Not sure how much we win by saying "A dictator rules Russia" vs. "Russia is ruled by a dictator", but I can see how just the fact of having to think more carefully about the formulation can contribute to a more reasoned discussion. It's a pity that the Wikipedia article fails to explain this point.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

I have two, somewhat contradictory, responses. The first is that it is not "to be" that is the issue, it is that students very often do not articulate themselves very well, and one way to encourage them to be more precise is to take away their linguistic crutches. If you can get them to ask to themselves, "how can I say this another way?", then you've already gone a long way to improving their writing, and by extension, their thinking. My second answer is ontological. The "is a" relationship is much more useful in mathematics and computer science than it turns out to be in the empirical, social and psychological sciences, where even the ontological categories that one discusses may be disputed. Instead of saying, "a cat is a mammal", it seems much more useful to talk about statistical distributions of traits shared by or not shared by cats and other mammals. And then, very often, our categories can obscure truths, e.g. the truth that biological sex is more complicated, multidimensional and continuous, that the binary categories "is a" encourages us to use. Historically, much of science begins by creating ontologies; basic questions are "what kinds of things are they?"; but at some point they can also become crutches. I think we see this in modern evolutionary biology quite clearly, with a move toward "population thinking" rather than categorical ontologies.