Talk:Persuasive definition

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Loaded terms rather than persuasive definitions used as examples

I removed the following examples from the article:

An example is the definition of the term "statutory rape" as consensual sex with an under-aged person. The negative term "rape", connoting lack of consent and physical violence, is used to increase the condemnation of the described behavior. The definition of "software piracy" as the act of infringing the copyrights of computer programs is another example. Another definition with heavy connotations is "price gouging".

I think these are all backwards: The term being defined is the one with loaded language. As I understand it the word shark, for example, could be persuasively defined as "a cold-blooded killing machine". A less persuasive definition would be one like used at the Wikipedia article: "a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body". —Mrwojo (talk) 01:36, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments on my recent edit

Regarding the edits I made yesterday that have since been undone, this is how I arrived at the first two sentences:

• From Copi & Cohen: ". . . definitions may be formulated and used persuasively, to resolve disputes by influencing the attitudes, or stirring the emotions, of readers or hearers. These we call persuasive definitions." This is followed by an extensive if-by-whiskey style humorous example of opposing definitions of abortion and a brief discussion of the emotive language of such definitions.
• From Hurley: "A definition intended to engender a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward what is denoted by the definiendum." The second sentence can be attributed to p. 94.
• From Kemerling: "An effort to influence attitudes by surreptitiously attaching emotive significance to the meaning of a term. According to Stevenson, the most common instance is an effort to change the descriptive meaning of an emotionally-charged evaluative term."

I didn't add explicit references because this was meant to be merely a summary of the rest of the article, per usual WP:LEAD style. It seemed clearer to me than what was previously (and currently) presented in the article while opening the door for details in the body of the article (e.g., how it's done, whether it's fallacious, its history, etc.). —Mrwojo (talk) 15:57, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

But "A persuasive definition is a type of definition that intends to influence the emotions of listeners or readers" does not convey the meaning well. Defining murder as killing of an organism can be done without any attempt to "influence emotions", but merely to lead someone to accept it and then argue that therefore capital punishment, killing in self-defense, meat-eating, and even picking flowers is murder. The crucial thing is usage of a definition that may seem acceptable at first but leads to accepting an agenda. I have provided refs. Also identifying it as the SAME as the definist fallacy goes against many sources.--JimWae (talk) 20:56, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

There appears to be some lack of agreement on exactly how to define it

• http://my.fit.edu/~aberdein/Aberde_P.htm
• http://books.google.com/books?id=ellaaVH7194C&pg=PA245&lpg=PA245&dq=stevenson+%22persuasive+definition%22&source=bl&ots=-sox64lWXF&sig=RtKIBjXBIeTXtRGPBM7lMPWCHyc&hl=en&ei=hiqiTdmgMKvZiALa562AAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=stevenson%20%22persuasive%20definition%22&f=false
• http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb6699/is_3_37/ai_n28823881/
• http://www.dougwalton.ca/papers%20in%20pdf/08PDvalues.pdf "changing the denotative meaning of an emotive word in order to make it possible to predicate it of an object which otherwise would not be included in the extension of the term." --JimWae (talk) 22:20, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

I and others would not agree with Kemmerling on "An effort to influence attitudes by surreptitiously attaching emotive significance to the meaning of a term". The emotive aspect is already attached, whatever def is used. It's changing the textual definition (& thus the extension of application), often accompanied by claims that such a definition is truer. Often the etymological fallacy (or some other) is committed to support the proposed def (as in "a-theist" to support babies and non-theistic agnostics are all atheists).--JimWae (talk) 22:39, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

In all these references I don't see it so much as disagreement but as a topic that's discussed broadly or specifically. For example, on the one hand murder can be descriptively redefined in such a way that it can be associated with flower-picking. On the other hand flower-picking can be emotively redefined as murder, likely without a stated redefinition of murder. (This seems why Copi & Cohen, Aberdein, and Govier (A Practical Study of Argument, pp. 77-78) relate figurative language to persuasive definitions.)

Parry & Hacker in Aristotelian Logic (pp. 96-97) wrote a definition that I think pulls this together, although perhaps not in the most readable way:

A persuasive definition is a stipulative definition of a familiar term that (or the defining term of which) has both descriptive and strongly emotive meaning, used to redirect attitudes by transferring the original emotive force of the definiendum to the new content (or the emotive force of the new defining term to the definiendum).

Govier provides persuasive definitions where the definiendum doesn't have such a strong emotive meaning compared to the language of its definiens: "teachers [are] nothing but babysitters" and "computer programmers are only hackers". I think there's better ways to word the lead to encompass the implications and inseparably related ideas of persuasive definitions. —Mrwojo (talk) 03:17, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Two sides

It seems like at least some of the items used as examples of persuasive definition are aspects of highly contentious two-sided arguments, but only provides the "definition" given by one side; this may suggest a degree of weight against that side if not balanced by something from the other, to show the presence of similar fallacy on both sides of the fence. For instance, while it may be fallacious to define "atheist" as "someone who doesn't realize God exists", there are equally fallacious terms used by atheists to describe people who believe in God. Also, while it may be fallacious or unprovable for pro-lifers to define a fetus as an "unborn person", there are similarly biased and persuasive definitions used by pro-choicers. In any case, both God and personhood are matters that can't be properly proven or disproven, so there's value in providing examples from both sides. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.45.169.2 (talk) 16:56, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

A totally valid point, but one which will not be acted upon, because this page is heavily monitored by leftists and atheists who embrace their intellectual dishonesty because they know what's good for us, they do it "for our own good". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.205.147.6 (talk) 17:27, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

ORIGINAL RESEARCH tag

Something is really fishy with this text all over it. The most striking example is:

• definition opposing taxation: "the procedure used by bureaucrats to rip off the people who elected them"

This is not a "definition" at all. It is a description or opinion about. Taken to an extreme, one may say that "an average American is a racist" is a definition. In other words, IMO most of the article is one big "misdefinist fallacy". IMO the reason is a fallacious confusion of different usages of the copula "is". "Bear is <a kind of> a mammal" is a <kinda> definition. 'Bear is a beast roaming the cities of Russia" is not really. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:58, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Started rewriting

I started rewriting the intro, which was rather garbled, but while checking sources, I see that different authors define the term differently. Therefore I am suspending the work until getting a full picture. Below is a piece I stared writing based on the original Stevenson's text, but it appears that since 1938 (pub. date) the meaning was somewhat altered. In particular, Bradley Dowden's entry from IEP makes a more general definition. However looks rather sloppy to me; IEP looks rather "popular science" to me, rather than a scholarly work. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:08, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

I keep my start work here as a draft for now. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:08, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

---

A persuasive definition is a form of stipulative definition for a concept which is commonly treated both according to its descriptive meaning (its objective qualities) and according to its emotive meaning (emotions it evokes in people). A persuasive definition keeps the emotive meaning unchanged while altering the descriptive meaning. In this way it attempts to change people's attitudes by introducing a new sense. Such definitions are usually invoked to support an argument for some view, or to create or alter rights, duties or crimes. The terms thus defined will often involve emotionally charged but imprecise notions, such as "freedom", "terrorism", "democracy", etc.

Persuasive definitions commonly appear in controversial topics such as politics, sex, and religion, as participants in emotionally charged exchanges will sometimes become more concerned about swaying people to one side or another than expressing the unbiased facts. A persuasive definition of a term is favorable to one argument or unfavorable to the other argument, but is presented as if it were neutral and well-accepted, and the listener is expected to accept such a definition without question.

The term "persuasive definition" was introduced by philosopher C.L. Stevenson as part of his emotive theory of meaning.

References

Political examples

“ If you want to make a point about science, or rationality, then my advice is to not choose a domain from contemporary politics if you can possibly avoid it. If your point is inherently about politics, then talk about Louis XVI during the French Revolution. ” — Eliezer Yudkowsky, Politics is the Mind-Killer

As per Politics is the Mind-Killer, I want to replace these examples with less distracting ones. Any objections? wizzwizz4 (talk) 23:20, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

No objections, if you have references from good sources which discuss the article subject, not just quotations you think are good here. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:17, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, this quotation is completely irrelevant to the article; I just thought it was a good policy. I'll try to find some sourced examples; though in many similar articles, the examples are not lifted verbatim from texts; instead, sources are used for the definition, and they satisfy the definition. wizzwizz4 (talk) 06:03, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I was not talking about this quotaion (it is not in the article). As for the Scotsman, thank you for pointing this out. Someone recently added a huge chunk of original research of WP:SYNTH type; deleted. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:37, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

they satisfy the definition - how do you know that? If you cannot quote a source that say it satisfies definition, then this is a small piece of your original research. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:40, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd argue that this falls under the spirit of WP:These are not original research#Translation and contextualizing and WP:SYNTHNOT#SYNTH is not explanation. If the examples we can find sources for are specific to national politics of some description, we're allowed to contextualise them outside those scenarios, provided that what's written is still supported by the sources. We're also allowed to give explanations for what we can find in sources, provided that the explanations are supported by the sources; an example is a form of explanation. wizzwizz4 (talk) 16:38, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

We're also allowed to give explanations provided that the explanations are supported by the sources - not exactly so, you are crossing a red line here: we are allowed to give explanations provided by the sources. We may summarize them, but we cannot invent them alleging that they are "supported by sources". Staszek Lem (talk) 18:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

What about recontextualising a political quotation by swapping political for apolitical allusions? wizzwizz4 (talk) 11:42, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Concept-Swapping

In the Related Concepts section of the Motte-and-bailey fallacy article, there is a link to this Persuasive definitions article, but the link itself is named "concept-swapping" and has a (currently broken) source for that name (I am providing the archive.org link for that reference). This source gives the following definition: "’concept-swapping’, the process whereby one concept is substituted for another in the course of an argument, without the audience (or perhaps even the arguer) realising what has happened". The reference even notes that "persuasive definition" is one of many similar terms.

But the term "concept-swapping" is completely absent from this persuasive definitions article. I think it would be best if it were included in some way (maybe just add to See Also section?), and also possibly some of the other related terms/concepts listed in the given reference, such as dissociation, monster barring, no true Scotsman, and motte & bailey. 73.131.249.36 (talk) 01:45, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

References