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> But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thi
by throw0101d 2y ago
> But what does it mean to cut well? Just the sharpness of the blade? What about grip comfort? And balancing? And stickiness? And weight? And what about the thing being cut? Can a knife cut everything well?
But what does it mean to cut? What is sharpness? How does one define it? What is a blade? What does it mean for something to be "comfortable"? How does one define weight: how does one define if something is "heavy" or "light"? What does it mean that something "is"?
Seriously: at some point the drilling down into definitions and saying the other person's argument does not answer everything can get ridiculous.
In this case the knife is an analogy: don't take it literally and move on with the actual argument/discussion being made.
- vasco 2y agoThat is also a bit of what philosophy is and in the exercise of fractally dissecting everything sometimes we uncover some new way of looking at things or deepen our understanding a bit more.
- throw0101d 2y ago> […] and in the exercise of fractally dissecting everything […] Except you don't do every time and on every topic. The topic now is happiness: it is not necessary to talk about what "is" means here. If you want to talk about ontology[0] submit an article on it. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology
- Almondsetat 2y agoSo if I don't have to take it literally I have to go with my own interpretation, which might be different from Aristotle's and voids the entire purpose of writing down his teachings.
- throw0101d 2y ago> So if I don't have to take it literally I have to go with my own interpretation […] https://xkcd.com/1860/ https://xkcd.com/1860/