Players of the Dictionary Game nut up on the idea that everything that is real is therefore really and simply definite, where “definite,” of course, means it can be compactly and completely characterized in a dictionary worthy “definition.” This all presupposes a world composed entirely and exclusively of simplistic and readily accessible “essences” that conveniently lend themselves to verbal descriptions that fit neatly into our existing language without gap or overlap.

Yeah. Right. (Well, when you say it that way …)

I suppose I should say a few explicit words about why such a set of assumptions constitutes the lowest sort of fatuous twaddle imaginable.

Let’s start with what ought to be an uncontroversial statement: the world is a complex place. (Anyone who would deny even so straight-forwardly obvious a claim as this is basically declaring themselves altogether outside even the abstract possibility of ordinary intelligence and is therefore simply not someone worth dealing with.) Every time we make a statement about the world, even one that deserves to be called “true,” we are making a dramatic simplification of matters just in order to compress some connection or other of ideas into a manageable verbal form. We are engaging in an act of abstraction that is stepping away from the dense messiness of concrete reality in order to deliberately select and highlight some very few features that are of special interest and/or application in some specific situation. Notice the vital role of selection, interest, and context (situation) in the preceding.

This is certainly all true in the case of definition. Definitions are never absolutes, they are never finalities. They are functional heuristics that are useful only insofar as they capture such salient characteristics of the subject at hand as allows them to promote and advance inquiry. They are not the first word on any subject, and they most assuredly are never the final word.

The only context in which definition enjoys any real hope of complete definiteness (notice the common root of those words) is in mathematics, and even here a shift in context can render moot a previously workable definition. This has happened in the history of number (with the development of negative, real, complex, hyper-complex, infinitesimal numbers, among other things) and space (with the development of non-euclidean spaces, and spaces of higher dimension, to the point where something like a “Hilbert space” is a “space” by courtesy and analogy only.) And mathematics is actually the simplest context we can identify: it is as completely denatured of any of the messiness of concrete reality, and we stand in complete control of “both sides of the equation,” as it were (which is to say, both the inquiry and the “thing” being inquired into.) It is so much worse when we start moving into the world proper.

So consider this favorite of the neo-fascists: “define ‘woman’.” Notice first of all that what the ham-fisted clods who throw such demands around are not looking for an operational heuristic to facilitate inquiry; they are actually requiring is something that is absolute, final, perfect (infantile, indefensible, impossible, and utterly vacuous.) Shall we call a woman a “female human”? That is patently circular. Do we make claims about the ability to bear children? Many women cannot, many because they are past child-bearing age, some because they were born unable to conceive. Shall we stipulate that they “would be able” to conceive under some “ideal” circumstances? The first scare quote is a modal qualifier, and the second presupposes everything that was to be shown in the first place and is once again blatantly circular.

Shall we appeal to surface presentations? That disregards the reality of various forms of pseudo-hermaphrodism (an admittedly somewhat archaic term) and other more broadly recognized kinds of intersex phenomena. Sometimes what is evident on the surface does not tell the whole story. Sometimes what is evident on the surface does not tell a single story. And that’s simply what is evident on the surface. No account has yet been made of those factors – genetic, cellular, endocrinological, hormonal – that are not visible to the naked eye (even when you look inside the person’s body.) Any such demand for a simple definition in these instances is an example of what I’ve called “the myth of the binary,” and it is a sophomoric demonstration of a failure of basic intelligence.

People who demand definitions as absolutes are demanding that the world be simple, which it is not, because dealing with reality in all of its complex messiness requires thinking, and that just makes their head hurt so bad. They want something like a perfect “definition” that will absolve them of the need to think, and simply legislate to them how things “really” are.

Which brings me to the issue of “proof.” The same folks who demand juvenile definitions are also likely to demand a “proof” of anything that doesn’t shoe-horn easily into their rigid, neo-fascist ideology. Having spent an entirely unhealthy amount of time with my nose up formal logic, abstract algebra, category theory, and the like, seeing the word “proof” bandied about by clowns who couldn’t even spell it correctly if their word processor didn’t redline it for them is the kind of thing that causes the veins in my neck to start throbbing.

There are only two contexts where the word “proof” has any genuine meaning or validity: alcohol and mathematics. Lawyers and jurists will talk about “proof,” but that will always be in the context of a definition that is itself based upon what a “reasonable” person would find adequately (according to various definitions of “adequacy”) compelling. Thus in the U.S. the standard in criminal cases is “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The issue of what is “reasonable” is clearly a live and pressing one, especially in a world swarming with Trump cultists, neo-fascists, conspiracy theory buffoons, and other persons who have entirely abandoned any pretense of basic intelligence. (And obviously there is a great deal of overlap in the preceding list.)

But this legal writhing really has nothing to do with proof so much as a preponderance of evidence that a person capable of being persuaded within the bounds of reason would accept. This means that persons of the preceding list (Trump cultists, neo-fascists, conspiracy theory buffoons, et al) are completely beyond the pale. Yet these are precisely the types of persons who are likely to demand “proof”: people who have no idea what proof is, and are entirely divorced from the possibility of being influenced by probative and valid evidence.

As all but explicitly pointed out above, the issue of evidence brings us back to the issue of definition, specifically “the” definition of “reasonable”. Notice I scare quote the definite article. Following arguments of Dewey, I am satisfied there is no one kind of intelligence (hence, no one kind of reasonable) but rather variously effective and intelligently controlled modes of inquiry. The poet sweating bullets trying to find the perfect word is not engaged in a less intelligent, less reasonable form of inquiry than the mathematician seeking the perfect construction to complete a proof (and, in this instance, a real proof.) But the form of reason – insofar as it is reasonable – conforms to the requirements of what are, after all, different modes of inquiry. (That being said, it may be worth noting that the Greeks placed poetry under the umbrella of music, which was itself considered to be one of the mathematical sciences.)

The tl;dr of all this is that the persons most noisily demanding definitions (and proofs) are typically clueless about both.