Eric Gans has a “methodological” position that I would call “semantic leniency”—he’s very resistant to terminological debates, and the notion that developing greater conceptual precision (arranging words greater internal referentiality, we might say) will add much to analytical clarity. It’s a justifiable approach, especially if there’s not a strong disciplinary space around you forcing upon you questions that must be answered, then answered again, and so on—obviously, terminological disputes can descend into petty pedanticism very easily. But, still, there comes a time in the life of any theory, or discipline, or even conversation, when arriving at some kind of agreement on the right name for things becomes essential to going on. (At a certain point there’s a need to ask: what do you mean by that?) The concept of “resentment,” for example, will at some point have to be nailed down if we are to have serious discussions about it. Nailing it down might not mean a precise, “official” definition that must be referred to every time you use the word but, rather, explicitness over the range of ways it’s used.
Scenic/Linguistic Undecidability
Scenic/Linguistic Undecidability
Scenic/Linguistic Undecidability
Eric Gans has a “methodological” position that I would call “semantic leniency”—he’s very resistant to terminological debates, and the notion that developing greater conceptual precision (arranging words greater internal referentiality, we might say) will add much to analytical clarity. It’s a justifiable approach, especially if there’s not a strong disciplinary space around you forcing upon you questions that must be answered, then answered again, and so on—obviously, terminological disputes can descend into petty pedanticism very easily. But, still, there comes a time in the life of any theory, or discipline, or even conversation, when arriving at some kind of agreement on the right name for things becomes essential to going on. (At a certain point there’s a need to ask: what do you mean by that?) The concept of “resentment,” for example, will at some point have to be nailed down if we are to have serious discussions about it. Nailing it down might not mean a precise, “official” definition that must be referred to every time you use the word but, rather, explicitness over the range of ways it’s used.