At what point do you have a table?

[quatona]

No you don't have a table when someone thinks of it.

Yes: I don´t but he does.
A word refer to a concept of the speaker; concepts categorize objects.
The fact that a person says "This is X" tells me that X falls into the person´s category which he refers to when saying X. Thus, if he say "This is X" he has X.
The same word is often even used by the same speaker to denote different concepts, depending on the situation. E.g. if I have a pen and a sheet of paper and say "I need a table" the situational concept that "table" refers to is possibly "I need some sort of hard surface to write on". It doesn´t even need legs or bolts or whatever would be required for something to meet my concept "table" in another situation (let´s say when I am planning a dinner with ten guests).

That would be a pretty cool superpower though. Just think of lots of money and you'd have it!

Yes, and we all have it. Children use it all the time in a very obvious manner (they take what looks to me as a branch and have a gun), and we adults use it, too.

If you showed me a pile of sawdust and said it was a table, I would think you're insane or you don't have a sufficient grasp of the English language. Or you're a philosopher playing definitional word games.

Yes...here you are touching a different issue, though:
As soon as language is used intersubjectively, i.e. for communication (which is its actual purpose, some might say), there come new requirements: If we are interested in successful communication we need to make sure that our concept that we use a word for is sufficiently congruent with the concept that is evoked in the person opposite when she hears this word.
IOW: successful communication requires the will to definitional cooperation (on both parts).

Calling a certain word-concept connection "insane" or "ignorant", or even insinuating sinister motives is not exactly cooperative.

 

[variant]

If I was to ask somebody for half of what used to be a table and they cut a table in half and brought me one of the halves I would say that I asked for half of what used to be a table, not half of a table.

"Half a table" is as I said, sloppy language, there is no such thing. When you cut a table in half the function and thus the concept is removed and so you qualify it.

To get half of what used to be a table you would have to start with what used to be a table.


x = a table

y = what used to be a table

Cut x in half and you don't get two halves of y--you get two halves of x.


Now we are back to square one: at what point does it become a table or is no longer a table (is what used to be a table)?

I don't see the problem. "X" in your equation is a natural number that can not be divided and still exist.

Removing the function means you no longer have a table as the concept is indivisible.

You can't have .5 tables as surely as you can't have .5 children or .5 pregnancies.

 

[LOVEthroughINTELLECT]

"Half a table" is as I said, sloppy language, there is no such thing. When you cut a table in half the function and thus the concept is removed and so you qualify it.



I don't see the problem. "X" in your equation is a natural number that can not be divided and still exist.

Removing the function means you no longer have a table as the concept is indivisible.

You can't have .5 tables as surely as you can't have .5 children or .5 pregnancies.

It sounds like you are saying that table is a function.

Imagine a tailgating party at a football game. Imagine a tablecloth, paper plates, napkins and utensils on the hood of a car. Imagine people eating burgers and potato salad off of the hood of that car. Imagine that somebody takes a picture of that scene. Now show that picture to a scientific sample of the population. Ask every person in that sample, "Is the hood of that car in that picture functioning as a table". They will most likely all say, "Yes". Then ask every person in that sample, "Is the hood of that car in that picture in fact a table". They will most likely all say, "No".

In other words, functioning as a table and actually being a table are two separate things.

We are back to square one. At what point do we have (or no longer have) a table?

 

[Gottservant]

The gravity of perspective, is not found in the details of its practicality, but in the commitment one has to a particular definition.
So if tables are flat, wooden and have four legs and you find something that is flat, wooden and has four legs, it is a table.
Saying the hood of a car could substitute a table negates that it is a car, which for simplicity's sake is best defined as a car, not a table.

On a planet where everybody uses cars as tables, what I am saying might be a moot point, but the point I am making is that the definition would therefore change.
The question you are asking is just a question of definition, which in the best sense, is done with rigour, consistency, minimality and even poetry.

Saying "I can make a definition sound less than poetic" is a lyrical argument, but it does not negate that the definition has other meaningful attributes as a definition, of which poetry is only one.

 

[variant]

It sounds like you are saying that table is a function.

I am. A table is what it does because we define what a table is and we do so because of what it does.

Imagine a tailgating party at a football game. Imagine a tablecloth, paper plates, napkins and utensils on the hood of a car. Imagine people eating burgers and potato salad off of the hood of that car. Imagine that somebody takes a picture of that scene. Now show that picture to a scientific sample of the population. Ask every person in that sample, "Is the hood of that car in that picture functioning as a table". They will most likely all say, "Yes". Then ask every person in that sample, "Is the hood of that car in that picture in fact a table". They will most likely all say, "No".

That would mean that there are other general aesthetic and functional considerations that we might consider for the wider populace.

The main function of a car is being a car so that is what most people will think of it as.

They will not recognize it as a table in this situation again, simply because most people simply don't use language precisely.

In other words, functioning as a table and actually being a table are two separate things.

I deny this assertion. There is an entire spectrum of things that might be called or used as tables in various contexts, that doesn't negate that a table and the idea of table are still fully dependent on their function.

One would not follow from the other.

We are back to square one. At what point do we have (or no longer have) a table?

No we are not, as I said when it ceases to function as a table it is not one, regardless of the necessary of aesthetic considerations.

If the car was destroyed to the extent that it couldn't be a functional table it would also cease to be one in any respect and your problem of divisibility doesn't arise in either case.

 

[durangodawood]

...when it ceases to function as a table it is not one.....

I think a broken table is still a table..... just that its broken.

 

[variant]

I think a broken table is still a table..... just that its broken.

That is why you qualify it as a "broken table". This is similar to having a dead child or a miscarried pregnancy. The original function is gone and you are using the original function of the scrap you have as it's name.

The "broken table" actually refers to the past function of the table as it's intended function to define the thing, you're still using the function as the definition.

I'm not saying you can't have a broken table I am saying you can't have half of a table. It is a similar idea but to have a non-qualified "table" it has to be functional and thus it is non-divisible. If both halves of a broken in half table don't exist then you don't have a broken table either, nor can you half half of a broken table, the table refers to the whole thing.

You can't have .5 tables.

 

[durangodawood]

That is why you qualify it as a "broken table". This is similar to having a dead child or a miscarried pregnancy. The original function is gone and you are using the original function of the scrap you have as it's name.

The "broken table" actually refers to the past function of the table as it's intended function to define the thing, you're still using the function as the definition.

I'm not saying you can't have a broken table I am saying you can't have half of a table. It is a similar idea but to have a non-qualified "table" it has to be functional and thus it is non-divisible. If both halves of a broken in half table don't exist then you don't have a broken table either, nor can you half half of a broken table, the table refers to the whole thing.

You can't have .5 tables.

I agree that things are typically defined by their function.

For instance. Around here you see a lot of broken arguments. But they are still arguments.

 

[variant]

I agree that things are typically defined by their function.

For instance. Around here you see a lot of broken arguments. But they are still arguments.

Then can you have half a table?

 

[durangodawood]

Then can you have half a table?

Of course.