Black History Month
February, when people and organizations across America revisit the African-American experience.
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posted by Robin at
4:53 AM
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Half the things in the universe are worse than the median; half are better. The former are 1s; the latter are 2s.
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9 Comments:
I disagree again. February is cold.
By
Anonymous, at 2/23/2005 3:31 PM
So, another philosophical issue: When we rate Black History Month, are we rating the referent -- which, in the actual world is February -- in virtue of all its properties? Or are we rating it only in virtue of those properties which are essential to its being Black History Month? My guess is that we should do the latter, but I'm not sure.
By
Neil Sinhababu, at 2/24/2005 3:36 AM
I'm voting for the former. But even if we do the latter, "February" is probably essential to "Black History Month." Ordinarily, the content of a definition of something is essential to that thing, and "February" appears in the arbiter's definition. And "cold" is essential to "February." This is so even though it's not cold in Australia during February.
By
Anonymous, at 2/24/2005 7:35 AM
Neil is right. Our project is evaluating things in the universe, and concerning ourselves with contextual happenstance muddies the discussion. If we fix on only essential properties the discussion is clean but not myopic. Cannonballs are projectiles (nobody fashions spheres of iron for another purpose), but we might celebrate the African-American experience in August--or in Australia.
By
Anonymous, at 2/25/2005 3:18 AM
In that case, Tre, are you taking issue with the definition given? Do you think "February" ought to be deleted?
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Anonymous, at 2/25/2005 5:00 AM
No, Black History Month is in February so the definition stands. I'm drawing a distinction between coincidental and essential qualities to focus the inquiry. True, arms can comically imitate crocodiles (coincidence), but when evaluating crocs we should fix on the fact that they think of a comic's arm as dessert (essential).
By
Anonymous, at 2/25/2005 11:13 AM
When you evaluate things, do you normally restrict yourself to what's essential to that thing? It is not essential to yogurt that it comes in strawberry flavor, but that it comes in strawberry flavor is certainly fair game for any evaluation of yogurt, I'd say.
By
Anonymous, at 2/25/2005 7:35 PM
The essential-property evaluator can consider the positive aspects of strawberry yogurt when evaluating yogurt. The fact that yogurt provides an effective platform for the addition of fruit is probably explained by the essential properties of yogurt. Thus the goodness of strawberry yogurt is within bounds.
By
Neil Sinhababu, at 2/26/2005 9:57 AM
The definitions serve a few purposes. First, they give some body to the post. Second, as Neil once said, they provide a nice objective prelude to the subjective numerical grading. Third, they specify what is being evaluated.
This last function is meant for homonyms like "Patient," for which some distinction between meanings is necessary. It's not meant to restrict the object to the characteristics cited in the definition. For example, Black History Month often honors George Washington Carver, who invented peanuts. My not mentioning that detail does not make it any less true or mean that it should not be considered when evaluating Black History Month.
When evaluating something, we take all its characteristics into account. Of course, we weight the essential qualities, but we allow the incidental ones to have some effect. Thus Tre would be pleased to know that celebrating the African-American experience is probably the most important thing to evaluate, and David, who seems to take great pleasure in alternately bringing intellectual rigor and childlike whimsy to this website, would be pleased to know that one should not give Black History Month its deserved 2 without briefly considering chilly weather.
By
Robin, at 2/28/2005 11:22 AM
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