Driving home from the store, I hear a commercial for “hand-grown Avocados” and I think to myself, what a fun game of semantics this is. For those unfamiliar with the philosophical concepts that revolve around definition and semantics, I will take you for a little ride to help you see the amusement that I had at this commercial’s expense.
First, what does it mean to be hand grown, for an avocado? Surely, they do not mean that the avocado grows because of their hand. I mean, last time I checked, avocados grew from trees and it was the tree, as well as the environment that supports the processes of the tree, that actually allowed the avocado to grow. So, I am confused, in what way is the avocado hand grown? Are you implying that it is grown in a test-tube and that one is actually responsible for the growth of the avocado? Is it still an avocado if it is created this way? What makes an avocado and avocado?
Is it defined by the color, shape, smell, taste, or nutrition density? If I were to engineer an orange to be the same shape as an avocado, would we be confused as to whether it is an orange or an avocado? Not likely, assuming that we could even still call the orange that is allegedly imitating an avocado an orange. This must mean an avocado is not defined by its shape, so what is it that makes it an avocado? Is it due to the process of growth; meaning, that is grows from trees and becomes the thing that we have chosen to define as an avocado? If this is the case, then an avocado grown any other way ceases to be an avocado. But is this correct?
Is an avocado defined then by a “thick” definition? Meaning that it is an accumulation of many things (growth, nutrition, shape, color, texture, etc.) and if so, which of these points are imperative to this thick concept of a definition, and which things can we leave out (if any)?
These types of questions are often attacked as a means to playing a game of semantics, however, that is due to the politician or deceiver trying to play a game of “tag, you’re it,” regarding the very thing that they are trying to weasel by the unsuspecting victim. Since antiquity, the deceiver has claimed that it is the philosopher who is playing semantics, when, in reality, it is the philosopher disclosing the concealed truth as to how the mind can be made victim through definition adjustments, like the one above ( “hand-grown”). As a philosopher myself, I cannot help but laugh out loud when I hear such ridiculousness from the media and other mass deceivers trying to swindle the fragile and naïve public minds who have been stripped of the opportunity to learn about real philosophy. They begin to despise philosophy as a mental war game and a philosophers words, as nothing more than semantic rhetoric. However, this is not always the case.
These deceivers would even trick the public into believing that a definition is whatever the majority decides it is, however, this is ridiculous and a major fallacy of beginning logic. If a definition is subjective it is also relative, and if A is relative to all, then it becomes radically relative, which means, the very principle that is used to define anything becomes true and false at the same time and thus, meaningless. A definition cannot be relative, for it must point to something tangible that is universal to all. That is the very reason that the concept of definition was created. I will save you the long and winded philosophical background that actually demonstrates the problems of such foolishness as well as the deceiver’s counter examples (such as Error Theory and the like). These I will save for the philosophical attacks that will come in the near future with my Ph. D.
For now, I just wanted to teach you a little bit about the game of semantics. Listen, learn, and have fun with it. The next time someone tries to deceive you, remember the semantic game and put them to the test.
