[sshine]

But "there's no such thing as a fish" is a different statement than "there's no such thing as a man". First off, "man" is not a biological category, but a human social category. Biologically, "boy" and "man" are both "male". And there is such a thing as male in biology.

There is such thing as a fish, just not phylogenetically: all the different organisms that we think of as fish don’t form a group that includes all the descendents of all fish and all fish. Why is that? Some things we consider fish today have common ancestors that have legs, i.e. not fish.

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/fisheye-view-tree-of-life/wha...

Fish only exist in a duck-typing sense, not in an unambiguous ancestry tree sense.

Being a fish is better seen as an interface rather than an inheritance.

Which is how cyborg feminism sees those human categories, too.

[voidUpdate]

Indeed. A fish is a category that we have made up to make it easier to communicate the concept of a wiggly thing that lives under the sea, in the same way that man is a social category we made up to communicate the concept of someone who presents in a male way

[mjburgess]

This is an analysis of the term "man" which is, at the very least, overly specialised to a technical reading in rhetorical or cultural analysis.

In areas of cultural analysis, terms are often read rhetorically, meaning as merely social actions with a persuasive or claim-making intent. E.g., to say "I know that ball will go in the net!!" isn't a claim involving actual knowledge, but something like a rhetorical act which appeals to the literal meaning of "know" in, say, something like an ironic/exaggerated/fabricated/social way. If one analysed the term "know" as-if this rhetorical context were its primary meaning, then one would conclude that all knowledge is merely a social presentation, knowing itself is no real thing in the world, only a game of making claims.

This is a deeply implausible primary meaning of "know", because it makes inexplicable why anyone would claim to know (ie., why would playing this game have any persuasive force?). It only makes sense if a literal meaning is available in which it is possible, and indeed quite common, to actually know things in an ordinary way. Then claiming to know, and being ironic/etc., makes sense.

It's no coincidence then that from this fields of analysis, in which any term whatsoever can take this merely rhetorical meaning, are terms like "man" given such a reading. However, the claim that this constitutes the only or even primary meaning of "man" is quite implausible. Since in the vast majority of cases, e.g., in biology, law, science, medicine etc. the authors are not taking "man" to be a kind of social rhetorical assertion. For example, pension ages differ in law across men/women -- its implausible to suppose that this law concerns itself with merely rhetorical actions of individuals insofar as they make claims to be men/women.

Indeed, as above, unless there is a literal meaning of "man" the social act of claiming to be one in a variety of non-literal contexts becomes meaningless. Consider eg., "I'm not really a man, I'm just playing one on stage with a lot of makeup". Here I'd suppose "man" has to have a literal meaning of having the characteristics of (human, adult) males in order for social claims of the sort, "I am a man!" to make any sense.

The very contemporary move to re-read these terms as primarily rhetorical claims might make some sense from a political/cultural perspective; but its quite important to remember that this cannot be their literal meaning -- or else a vast amount of derivative rhetorical meaning, and indeed existing law/textbooks/discourse/etc. becomes meaningless.

[voidUpdate]

Um... maybe I just need some coffee, or maybe I need more knowledge of philosophy. Would you be able to dumb that down a bit, or summarise?

[mjburgess]

What does the term "man" mean in the assertion, "I am a man!"

Two interpretations:

1) It has a literal meaning: the speaker has the characteristics of adult human males.

2) It is has a social-asserting meaning: the speaker wants to be perceived as "the kind of person who makes those assertions"

For asserting-meanings like (2) to make sense, literal meanings (1) have to be available.

Consider, "I'm not a crook!"

For it to make sense to claim not to be a crook, it has to be literally possible not to be one (ie., to be innocent of crimes) independent of claiming to be one.

Many today want (2) to be the "primary" meaning of terms like man/woman, ie., we are told that we should always read them as social assertions. But we have to keep in mind that literal meanings (1) have to exist in order for (2) to even make any sense -- not least that in almost all historical cases (most of the law, medicine, etc.), the literal meaning is the intended meaning.

To say "I am a man!" cannot always mean, "I wish to be seen as having the characteristics of adult males". Just as saying "i am not a crook" cannot always mean, "i wish to be seen as innocent".

A person saying, "I am not a crook" is hoping to persuade the audience that they are innocent. They are "borrowing" from the literal meaning, hoping to persuade the audience that are innocent -- even if they are not.

People saying "I am a man" who are not literally men are likewise borrowing from "what would make this claim literally true" when the say it. If they arent, it wouldnt make any sense to say. The audience has to already know what men literally are before a person claims to be one.

[voidUpdate]

Thank you =)

I would say that "a man" is someone who presents, or deeply wishes to present, in the way the society has generally dictated people who have been assigned male at birth have to. For example, I have a friend who is a trans man. I would class them as "a man", since they wish to present, and exist in society, in the same way that people who have been assigned male at birth would. As such, they have short hair, refer to themselves by a name that has more masculine connotations, wear clothes generally aimed as masculine people, etc

[mjburgess]

The issue with this analysis is that it cannot explain the use of the term "man" in most contexts, nor literal claims to being a man.

In the first case, take a law about pensions -- the law-writer wasnt giving masculine-presenting people fewer years of their pension than feminine-presenting people; they were applying it to adult males. This applies very generally across many uses of man/woman -- the speaker just doesn't mean masculine-people and feminine-people, even if that highly correlates with the people they did mean. (Taking masculine/feminie to mean those presenting-characteristics).

In the second case, consider the claim, "I am really a man!", if that's only a claim to masculine-presentation then 'really' doesnt make sense, right? How could an audience ever be mistaken about this? What is at issue when people claim this, or dispute this? No person who asks, "are you really X?" is disputing how something is already perceived as-being-X.

Compare with, "are you really a crook?", "are you really a police officer?", "are you really a witch?" In each case there is a literal, descriptive, perception-independent meaning.

One reply to me here is to bite the bullet and say, "I am really a man(, I am just perceived to be a woman)!" is meaningless. That claims, "I am really a man/woman!" are meaningless. That makes sense out of the view that it's all just social perception, but its kinda implausible -- because we've written so much using these terms that there's clearly a literal meaning.

Eg., consider going to the pension office to collect a pension at the age for which women are allowed it but men are not. You speak to the pension officer and say, "I'm a woman, so I'm allowed my pension now". It seems the pension officer can meaningfully dispute this, "Are you really a woman?"

If you asked, "what do you mean?" the pension officer could coherently say, "pension age for women is 66, meaning if you are female and an adult over 66 then you are entitled to.."

It would seem disqualifying to reply, "I am a woman because I am perceived to be the same as the people who qualify"

[blueflow]

Sex is "reframed" to a matter of performance / visibility (Gender) because your friends emotional well-being depends on it. The recent-ish gender theory is all about accommodating people with these kind of feelings. From that perspective, the "What is a Man/Woman" discussions make much more sense than they currently do.