What's soup
When we use words, we tend to assume that others are using them in the same way as we are. If they do not, that will cause a problem for understanding and evaluating each other's reasons, or for any sort of communication. But there is plenty of evidence that we usually don't know exactly what words mean.
We will only consider one simple class of words - nouns. Nouns are words that describe a category of similar things. Nouns include:
Chair, Sheep, Soup, Money, Idea, Country, Philosopher, and Emotion.
Of all these, we might think that 'chair', 'sheep', and 'soup' are the easiest to define. But the meaning of 'chair' has long been discussed by philosophers and furniture-designers alike. Is a chair defined by being primarily for sitting on? Must it have four legs and a back? How does it differ from a small couch? Is 'chair' a cross-cultural constant, or do different cultures have conflicting ideas of what is acceptable in a chair? Similarly, 'sheep' - like all species terms - has been shown to be effectively undefinable by biologists and philosophers of biology. We can't even say when a sheep becomes a goat, because there are too many intermediate cases. Soup.png
So, that leaves us with 'soup'. Surely, we know what we mean by soup, or at least we should recognise soup when we see it. And we would expect a great deal of agreement between people, at least those with a common cultural background. Fortunately, a philosopher (Stefano Gualeni) has decided to investigate our concept of soup, and has devised an interactive thought experiment, or short online game, to help you to decide what your "rules of soup" are.
Stefano summarises his research results as: "Definitions of 'soup' are established by what is most commonly present in (or with) them. We noticed that, when presented with different soup examples, people were more conceptually inclusive than they were in their definitions." And that fits with research about how we use and define most terms. We often make our definitions too narrow, and then allow exceptions or border-line cases when we think of them.
We will only consider one simple class of words - nouns. Nouns are words that describe a category of similar things. Nouns include:
Chair, Sheep, Soup, Money, Idea, Country, Philosopher, and Emotion.
Of all these, we might think that 'chair', 'sheep', and 'soup' are the easiest to define. But the meaning of 'chair' has long been discussed by philosophers and furniture-designers alike. Is a chair defined by being primarily for sitting on? Must it have four legs and a back? How does it differ from a small couch? Is 'chair' a cross-cultural constant, or do different cultures have conflicting ideas of what is acceptable in a chair? Similarly, 'sheep' - like all species terms - has been shown to be effectively undefinable by biologists and philosophers of biology. We can't even say when a sheep becomes a goat, because there are too many intermediate cases. Soup.png
So, that leaves us with 'soup'. Surely, we know what we mean by soup, or at least we should recognise soup when we see it. And we would expect a great deal of agreement between people, at least those with a common cultural background. Fortunately, a philosopher (Stefano Gualeni) has decided to investigate our concept of soup, and has devised an interactive thought experiment, or short online game, to help you to decide what your "rules of soup" are.
Stefano summarises his research results as: "Definitions of 'soup' are established by what is most commonly present in (or with) them. We noticed that, when presented with different soup examples, people were more conceptually inclusive than they were in their definitions." And that fits with research about how we use and define most terms. We often make our definitions too narrow, and then allow exceptions or border-line cases when we think of them.
Comments (15)
I agree. I don't think we can get behind our own language.
When I first read philosophy, I learned somewhere the motto 'define your terms.' While this is not a bad idea, I think it can only be taken so far. As I analyze the meaning of a word, I have to use lots of other words that I am taking for granted as I analyze the word in the foreground. So I am using un-analyzed words to do philosophy, which was supposed to be less than ideal.
Knowing how to 'do' language seems like a condition for the possibility of thinking that thinking cannot 'get behind' or make fully explicit. I think one version of the philosophical quest would like to make everything explicit and justified. No more unlit dependencies. No dark mother on which we depend. But I think the best we can do is light up this or that a little better and maybe improve our lives by improving our thinking.
No one, except for maybe Plato and his ilk, has ever said that the boundary of any class of things is fixed or immutable. People disagree. Classes overlap. Meanings change. Still, let's take your example of soup.
The great majority of Americans would agree this is soup:
Maybe there would be some disagreement about this. Soup? Stew?
Pretty much everyone would agree that this is not soup:
In the midwest "chili" is all too often hamburger-kidney bean-tomato stew.
A chair is designed so that it will not fall over easily while in use. Four legs is the most common solution for stability, but other solutions are possible. A chair may include structures on which to rest one's arms. The legs of a chair may be attached to curved wood pieces so that a limited rocking motion can be made. The chair may be made out of wood only, metal only, plastic only, other material, or a combination. The chair may be hard or covered with cloth, leather, plastic, and padding. Parts of the chair may be movable so that one can recline in the chair instead of sitting upright.
The height of a chair seat is usually such that most people can rest their feet on the floor while using the chair.
Chairs A, B, C, & D; all different, all obviously chairs.
Christiansen
Saarinen
Marcel Breuer
Avant Guard
I made the interactive thought experiment mentioned in this thread (the soup game, more nominally). I also lurk this forum, from time to time.
In case anyone is interested in trying the 'short game' (if we agree to call it so), you can do it freely at this address: http://soup.gua-le-ni.com/
I left some notes about how we developed the experiment on the website, where I also linked some papers about not only this game, but the more general use of interactive virtual worlds for philosophical uses (both as players and as creators of those 'games', both as readers and as writers of philosophical works). Find more information here: http://soup.gua-le-ni.com/more/
I am interested in understanding and manipulating computers and virtual worlds as philosophical media (with their advantages over text and orality and their inevitable limitations and drawbacks). Currently working on a new one about cats and indexicality.
Happy that the 'soup game' captured your interest.
Might also be interesting to debate whether the 'soup game' itself is a game, and what 'ingredients' make a game a game in case. :)
Objectifies chairs.
I think the soup game meets the criteria as a game, which are:
- It's clearly intended to be entertaining and challenging
- There's a right way and wrong way to do it. There are rules.
- There is a problem to be solved
- It took me 10 minutes to get it to work
- I couldn't figure it out
- I lost patience and got annoyed
- I couldn't figure out how to turn it off so had to use cntrl alt del
- I said - who is this fucking guy.
- I wrote an irritated response
[1]Footnote:
[1] - This response is intended to be ironic, amusing, or irritating.
Is there any evidence that there is an exact meaning for us to be ignorant of? Vagueness seems to annoy philosophers, which explains why they are so grumpy so often.
I haven't played the game because computer paranoia. But talking to the dudes round here is so much like trying to talk to aliens - is there something that cannot be exposed in human dialogue, that can in the game? If there is, how can you distinguish a limitation of language being brought out and one being fabricated by the structure of the game?
I think 'soup' is an analogical concept, one that describes variations in liquid food, such as cold, hot, sweet and sour, thick/thin...soup. The game enables its player to shape a conception of what soup can be, and that conception is a digital mediation the game's author creates by providing pathways (its dialectic) of control embedded as possibilities for its players. The author controls the paths, which go somewhere, backwards or nowhere leading the player's by a limited set of digital possibilities, tangential possibilities, but at the same time the game can approach but it cannot encompass it's project because a soup's aesthetic is essentially analogical and not digital.
Also most common nouns are only informative in so far as they are ambiguous, up to a diminishing point at around 50% flexibility in meaning, after which point meaning is lost.
Although I agree with you as far as the 'analogical' and 'inherently ambiguous' argument go, I would like to clarify that, in the case of the soup game, we tried to avoid being authors who control and determine what you call 'paths'. Although, indeed, the game experience is very limited and somewhat linear, in the case of the conception of what a soup is or could be I believe there is an important and interesting point to raise. Here it comes:
(this bit I took from the 'how?' section of the website)
[i]During the development of SOMETHING SOMETHING SOUP SOMETHING, we had to identify the properties and features that different people in a variety of different cultures use to describe soup. By doing so, we tried to remove our personal biases about what soup is (or is not) from the conceptual design of our interactive thought experiment.
Inspired by Eleanor Rosch and Carolyn B. Mervis’s linguistic experiments, we organised focus groups in different countries. The various activities involved in those focus groups were meant to help us more clearly understand what soup was for them. They also ensured that our conceptions of soup, as designers, were as inclusive as possible.[/i]
(end quote)
There is a paper discussing the process of determining the properties and features in detail here, in case you are interested: http://soup.gua-le-ni.com/site/assets/files/1025/harrington_pocg2017.pdf
Also, ultimately the game does not impose a criterion for success and does not author the conclusion of the experience with a final statement about what soup really is, or what we think it is. In this sense, rather than a 'playable argument' (which is teleological and follows an argumentative 'line'), we talked about a 'playable thought experiment' (a hypothetical situation that is open to interpretation, negotiation, and can be playful).
Suppose I told you it is a dollhouse chair, incapable of functioning as something you sit on?
So, the doll's rocking char is no problem. It has the form of wooden rocking chairs, and if a rat sat in it, the rat could rock. Rat rocking contentedly, Hickory hickory dare; the rat rocks in the chair.
is this a table and chair or is it a "sculpture" as it is termed, put in a London park to encourage people to be creative? If an ordinary object is changed in scale, does it cease having the form that gives it identity? Hmmm, don't know about that.