The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 157 of 254
Pragmatic identity and counting sex
The distinction I am making here is between strict logical identity and what we might call pragmatic identity. There are numerous examples of words and concepts that are not strict sortals yet which can usually be used as though they were. Take the act of ‘having sex’. I’m always a little puzzled by the ease with which people will report how many times they had sex over a given timescale. How exactly do they count? We don’t normally ask the question because we assume we know what is meant. But try to specify it and you can see it is actually not unambiguous. Some (men, mainly) will take it to mean the number of times they achieved orgasm. But would they say they didn’t have sex if they made love and didn’t climax? And what if between orgasms the lovemaking didn’t stop? Did the woman, or the man, have sex twice or once? It should be pretty obvious both that there is no right answer and that, for practical purposes, it usually doesn’t matter. ‘Having sex’ is not a true sortal, but it can usually function as though it were. There are plenty of other examples. Chop up an apple, a banana and a kiwi fruit and mix them together. Do you have one portion of fruit or three? Fill a pint glass with wine: is that one glass of wine or three, or four? Is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon one piece of music or ten? To think that there must be one and only one correct answer to each of these questions is absurd. The best answer is the one that gives the information the questioner is looking for.