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| The truth and nothing but... | The truth and nothing but... |
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| Can definitions of words be clear-cut?It's all very well to search for hard-and-fast truths but is it possible in a world filled with ambiguity, asks Laurie Taylor in his weekly column for the Magazine. | Can definitions of words be clear-cut?It's all very well to search for hard-and-fast truths but is it possible in a world filled with ambiguity, asks Laurie Taylor in his weekly column for the Magazine. |
| I had a university tutor in psychology who was popularly known as Doctor Dit. For a couple of terms I assumed along with my fellow students that this was an innocent nickname. But then one day I was told by a postgraduate that it was really an acronym. It was not DIT but DYT and the letters stood for Define Your Terms. | I had a university tutor in psychology who was popularly known as Doctor Dit. For a couple of terms I assumed along with my fellow students that this was an innocent nickname. But then one day I was told by a postgraduate that it was really an acronym. It was not DIT but DYT and the letters stood for Define Your Terms. |
| It was a very appropriate designation. Whereas other tutors would positively encourage some debate in their seminars, the man known as DYT would immediately bring any such discussion to a halt by a demand for definitions. | It was a very appropriate designation. Whereas other tutors would positively encourage some debate in their seminars, the man known as DYT would immediately bring any such discussion to a halt by a demand for definitions. |
| It was not unlike being repeatedly hit over the head. "Right. Taylor, what is the value of optical illusions in the study of perception?" FIND OUT MORE Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesdaysor 0030 on MondaysOr download the podcast here | It was not unlike being repeatedly hit over the head. "Right. Taylor, what is the value of optical illusions in the study of perception?" FIND OUT MORE Hear Laurie Taylor's Thinking Allowed on Radio 4 at 1600 on Wednesdaysor 0030 on MondaysOr download the podcast here |
| "Well," one would begin, "When your eyes are deceived it could be that the deception is the inappropriate applicationâ¦" | "Well," one would begin, "When your eyes are deceived it could be that the deception is the inappropriate applicationâ¦" |
| "Not so fast, Taylor. You said 'deception?'" | "Not so fast, Taylor. You said 'deception?'" |
| "That's right." | "That's right." |
| "Define your terms. Define your terms." | "Define your terms. Define your terms." |
| Over coffee in the basement canteen we'd wonder about the nature of Dyt's home life. We'd construct scenarios in which Mrs Dyt turned to him over breakfast coffee one morning and announced her dissatisfaction with the sexual side of their marriage. "We don't make love any more." That would really get Dyt going. "Make love? Make love? Define your terms. Define your terms." | Over coffee in the basement canteen we'd wonder about the nature of Dyt's home life. We'd construct scenarios in which Mrs Dyt turned to him over breakfast coffee one morning and announced her dissatisfaction with the sexual side of their marriage. "We don't make love any more." That would really get Dyt going. "Make love? Make love? Define your terms. Define your terms." |
| Now that I look back on my time with Doctor Dyt, I feel more sympathetic to his intellectual crusade. What he wanted to do was purge the world of all ambiguity and ambivalences. He envisaged a time when people only used terms with precise definitions, a time when every flower in his intellectual garden would be precisely labelled. | Now that I look back on my time with Doctor Dyt, I feel more sympathetic to his intellectual crusade. What he wanted to do was purge the world of all ambiguity and ambivalences. He envisaged a time when people only used terms with precise definitions, a time when every flower in his intellectual garden would be precisely labelled. |
| Doomed | Doomed |
| Only when we reached that happy state, when the undergrowth of uncertainty had been cleared away, would we be able to arrive at hard-and-fast truths about the world. | Only when we reached that happy state, when the undergrowth of uncertainty had been cleared away, would we be able to arrive at hard-and-fast truths about the world. |
| But of course, Dr Dyt's enterprise was doomed to failure. Words simply won't sit still and have precise definitions hung around their necks. Their meaning slips and slides, determined - as Wittgenstein maintained - by their many uses: | But of course, Dr Dyt's enterprise was doomed to failure. Words simply won't sit still and have precise definitions hung around their necks. Their meaning slips and slides, determined - as Wittgenstein maintained - by their many uses: |
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| I've plucked that Wittgenstein quotation from the introduction to Key Concepts in Education, a new book by Fred Inglis and Lesley Aers, which doesn't so much offer clear-cut definitions of such familiar educational terms as assessment, citizenship, curriculum, literacy and pedagogy, as show how such terms have been variously used by people with different material and philosophical interests. | |
| Dr Dyt would not have approved. | Dr Dyt would not have approved. |
| Below is a selection of your comments. | |
| You sent shivers down my spine. Nearly 40 years ago, my admissions interview at Oxford was conducted by a genial inquisitor, who I now know was AJ Ayer. I remember being asked whether a tomato is fruit or a vegetable, and then digging a philosophical hole for myself, from which it took me half an hour to emerge. I still relive the trauma every time I pass a greengrocer's shop. To my shame, I never have managed to read Language, Truth and Logic (when it came to philosophy, I stuck to Plato and Aristotle). Still, with a run-up, I could describe logical positivism, the principle of verifiability, and the necessary truth of a tautology. My attention was caught by your reference to Wittgenstein, not something found too often on the BBC Magazine webpage. I promise to catch up with your podcasts.James, Manchester | |
| I'm sure Dr Dyt understood that "their meaning slips and slides, determined ... by their many uses", and that's exactly why he wanted you to define your terms: to explain what you were using them to mean in this particular conversation, not to pin unambiguous definitions on them permanently.Rachael, Cambridge, UK | |
| "Is it possible in a world filled with ambiguity"? Yes, it's called "maths".Bob, London | |
| I'm very much of the belief that objective definitions are hugely difficult to achieve purely because the act of defining (and thus understanding, calculating, etc) is inextricably linked with language. Language is such that it is moulded and constructed based upon many variables such that a man from New York may offer a different definition of the word "humble" to the man from New Delhi. Thus, the social construction of the language we use to define means that objectivity is difficult to obtain. To obtain pure objectivity would require a completely de-constructed language. Max, London | |
| Dr Dyt would have approved. The point of defining the terms you use is not to try to restrict words to only one meaning, but to be clear which of many meanings you're using. Hugh Parker, Birmingham, England | |
| Words have very slippery meanings indeed when you take them on their own, but in the proper surroundings they take on very specific meanings, and it is important to be clear about what you mean in any academic discussion if you're going to succeed at getting your point across at all.Arthur, Oxford | |
| Of course there's such a thing as absolute truth! It's just that this post-modern world decides to reject it, replacing it with the nonsensical idea that truth is subjective. Religion is the perfect example. Postmodernism would suggest that it doesn't matter what religion you follow, because "if it's true for you", that's great. The simple reality is that either there is a God or there isn't, and muddying the issue with ambiguity and ambivalence, suggesting that the answer is subjective, doesn't make any sense at all.Pete, Haverfordwest |