Philosophy
I've been thinking about the use of the verb to own with respect to an intellectual view. When a student is being wishy-washy about a proposition he or she is arguing for and clearly believes, I'll tell the student to "own the position." The command is to really make the claim and stand by it. When you own a claim it becomes your position. The grammatical use of the possessive there is what is fascinating. Does that imply real ownership in some sense?
Certainly, it is not exclusivity in the right to use. Anyone else could own the position also in the same way. But then anyone else could own a CD of "Kind of Blue" also, it doesn't mean you don't own your copy. Since a view is an intellectual kind of thing, the ownership relation should have different attributes.
But is it ownership at all? Is it a metaphorical use? Is it a completely different sense of the word making "to own" ambiguous in the way that "bank" could mean a financial institution or the side of a river? Or is it real ownership in the same sense? Is it the same meaning as when we say to "own up to" some action, thereby giving it a moral connotation? Can you really own a position?
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Philosophy
Can You Really Own a Position?
I've been thinking about the use of the verb to own with respect to an intellectual view. When a student is being wishy-washy about a proposition he or she is arguing for and clearly believes, I'll tell the student to "own the position." The command is to really make the claim and stand by it. When you own a claim it becomes your position. The grammatical use of the possessive there is what is fascinating. Does that imply real ownership in some sense?
Certainly, it is not exclusivity in the right to use. Anyone else could own the position also in the same way. But then anyone else could own a CD of "Kind of Blue" also, it doesn't mean you don't own your copy. Since a view is an intellectual kind of thing, the ownership relation should have different attributes.
But is it ownership at all? Is it a metaphorical use? Is it a completely different sense of the word making "to own" ambiguous in the way that "bank" could mean a financial institution or the side of a river? Or is it real ownership in the same sense? Is it the same meaning as when we say to "own up to" some action, thereby giving it a moral connotation? Can you really own a position?
- Are Critics Artists?
It's an old cliche, "Everyone's a critic." While it may be easy to be critical, it is not easy to be a critic. Real criticism takes a work of art, literature, or film and uses it as the basis for an insightful discussion that weaves...
- Historians, Archaeologists, And Scientists
Are historians scientists? They frame hypotheses about the causes and effects of real events and use empirical evidence to support their accounts. But they don't do not look for regularities to make into laws; to the contrary, they account...
- Grammar Curmudeons
Had a student ask yesterday about grammatical pet peeves. His was "irregardless." My big three are: 1) "Quote" used for "quotation." Quote is a verb. You quote someone. What you write down is not a quote, but a quotation. ...
- Ownership And Access
The notion of intellectual property has never been made fully consistent. It is an attempt to marry an Enlightenment era notion about possession of things and land to a changed notion of "the fruits of one's labor." I remember as an undergraduate...
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On the heels of the Iowa caucus, let's ask about the requirements to be President of the United States. It is written into the second article of the Constitution that to be eligible for the position, one must be thirty five years old. ...