TransWikia.com

Is there a name for using a characteristic to describe something, although it only has that characteristic some (enough) of the time?

English Language & Usage Asked on January 9, 2021

A ‘red house’ will almost certainly not be entirely red. It might have a white door, or a transparent windows or whatever, but if it is red enough for that to be relevant in the conversation, we say ‘a red house’.

What is the name for this use of ‘red’?

The above is meant to be a simple example, but it might help to explain why I want to know. I’m writing a philosophy paper where I argue that just because the Nyaya school thought a conscious self existed, they didn’t necessarily think the self was conscious all the time or of all of it’s activities of operations (so a self which was not could still be acceptable to them).

I compare this with our modern talk of conscious humans. Human beings are often unconscious: when we’re knocked out or go to sleep, but we don’t stop being human, and it doesn’t stop being true that humans are conscious things. (We also do lots of unconscious things, like beating our hearts.) When we ascribe consciousness to human beings we do it the same way we ascribe redness to the house: humans are conscious enough, enough of the time to warrant the label.

Notice that this is not a case where something only doing something some of the time completely qualifies the thing for the relevant adjective. For example, a car is sometimes stationary, sometimes moving, but the fact that it can sometimes move means it’s always mobile (always able to move). Consciousness above is not like that: human beings really are just not conscious sometimes.

So what is this use of predicates called?

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question

Get help from others!

© 2024 TransWikia.com. All rights reserved. Sites we Love: PCI Database, UKBizDB, Menu Kuliner, Sharing RPP