Pregnancy
October 9th 2006 07:11
There are actually grey areas. Most of the time, it's fairly obvious whether you're pregnant or not, but it's arguable at what point, exactly, you become "pregnant".
And consider this grossness: if you carry a dead foetus, are you "pregnant"? There would be tendencies in this case (outside of specialised contexts) both to use the word, and to refrain from it. "Pregnant" wasn't designed to handle technicalities, and nor should one expect it to be. It operates on basic, usually-sufficient categories -- "bearing a child" vs "not bearing a child".
The grey areas point to the ultimate insufficiency of the categories, but this doesn't mean that ordinary usage is nonsensical. "Insufficiency" is a matter of the purpose for which you want to make distinctions.
And consider this grossness: if you carry a dead foetus, are you "pregnant"? There would be tendencies in this case (outside of specialised contexts) both to use the word, and to refrain from it. "Pregnant" wasn't designed to handle technicalities, and nor should one expect it to be. It operates on basic, usually-sufficient categories -- "bearing a child" vs "not bearing a child".
The grey areas point to the ultimate insufficiency of the categories, but this doesn't mean that ordinary usage is nonsensical. "Insufficiency" is a matter of the purpose for which you want to make distinctions.
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Comment by Johanna
PCOS Mum
Comment by Chantal
Comment by Damo
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Reminds me of something that Hilary Putnam claimed, that correct usage of a word depends on the scientific segment of a linguistic community. Won't try to spell out the argument here, but this is where he talks about the differences between Earth and Twin Earth (where "water" is exactly the same on both planets, except that it's composed of H2O here, and XYZ over there -- would we call Twin Earth "water" water?).
Whether "half pregnant" computes, I reckon depends on how complex the computer is. As I understand it, it's possible to build "fuzzy logic" washing machines. (And it's possible to build fuzzy logic organic machines as well?)