Philosofical Question

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

No ... a broken sword would either just be a hilt, guard, grip and pommel or a combination thereof... or assuming there was fragments still attached to the haft and guard, a dagger if a double edged sword, or a knife if single edged.

Assuming if you were holding the sword by it's blade and all else had broken away, it would be an 'edge'.

 

[Sneeze]

When all else fails, apply the duck test?

Does it look like a sword, stab like a sword and swing like a sword? If it does, it's probably still a sword.

 

[guntotingtomcat]

This is semantics, not really philosophy.

 

[Terminal Blue]

This is semantics, not really philosophy.

Where have you been.. Western philosophy is basically semantics scaled up a bit and with beards.

That said, since signs do not have any predetermined relationship to the real world it's a silly question. You can describe it as a sword or you can describe it as not a sword. Neither way is any more correct or conveys any more essential truth, it depends on the context in which you use it and the effect/affect you want to convey.

 

[Jake Stavroff]

Indeed. The sword is only broken. I mean, if half of you arm needs to be amputated because of gangrene, is the one stub attached to your shoulder still an arm? is the lost limb still an arm? Yes. Besides, what else would you define the broken sword as? a large pocket knife?

 

[SamElliot'sMustache]

*Sigh* Can't believe I'm engaging in this dumbass conversation...

You build a house out of Lego. Okay cool, you have a house.

Now take the Lego apart, and make something else? Where is the house? You have the bricks you made it with, but where did the actual house go?

= A house is not a thing, it is a concept.

Actually, a house is a thing. It's a home that's a concept (since it's a place that is uniquely yours to live in, that makes you feel warm and safe and loved). A house is a building made for the purposes of living in that isn't sectioned off into apartments. For example, a mansion is a house, albeit a really fancy one, because it was made for the express purposes of one person/family (a 'household') to live in. As for your question, it's easy: the house has been destroyed. Broken down into all it's smaller parts, so it no longer exists. Sort of like how a digested banana gets broken down into all it's vitamins and minerals. It was a banana, now it's not. Doesn't mean the banana wasn't an existing thing, just means that it no longer is around.

Now excuse me while I go wipe the pretentious goop I got on me just from looking at this thread.

 

[spartan231490]

Just a quick one for you guys.

Is a sword still a sword, after it has been broken (shattered in pieces or broken in two, doesnt matter)?

first, in case you somehow don't know, it's Philosophical. Now, to answer your question, yes, it's just a broken one. It may no longer serve it's purpose, but neither does a wooden sword, or a sword in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use it, or an unsharpened sword, or a sword sitting on display. None of these conditions change the item into something other than a sword, and so neither does breaking it.

 

[GundamSentinel]

If I interpret Plato correctly it would just be another form of the basic 'idea' that is a sword, so yes, it would still be a sword.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

Wow thats one big amount of Phail there OP

 

[teutonicman]

Filosofical caused me to twitch. Anyway if the shattered sword still has a handle, pommel, and blade attached to each other then I'd consider it to be one still. Though it would just be a shitty shattered sword.

 

[Iwana Humpalot]

It is a broken sword, get used to it.

 

[AWDMANOUT]

Elendil became thereafter a great lord, the first of the kings of Gondor and Arnor. He used Narsil in the War of the Last Alliance against Sauron. During the siege of Barad-dûr, Elendil and Gil-galad overthrew Sauron, but perished in the act, and Narsil broke into two beneath Elendil as he fell. Elendil's son Isildur then used the hilt-shard of the sword to cut the One Ring from the hand of Sauron. Sauron was vanquished and his spirit fled but his power endured in the ring. - Wikipedia

Yes.

 

[Der Kaiser]

The duck test, hmmm?

But what if you take the duck apart, replace all its inner duckling intestines and organs with those of a swan, and re-assemble the duck, is it still a duck? Assuming, of course, it's still alive.

It looks like a duck, it walks like a duck, it might even quack like a duck, but it no longer is essentially, purely, a duck!

It's a duckswan. Or a swanduck.

 

[Eisenfaust]

is a hole still a hole if you fill in half of it? just because it's been broken in half doesn't mean it isn't a sword, it's just a different sword, while simultaneously being half of the old one... as with the hole, the sword exists in a state both relative and absolute, where they are both a new sword (and a new hole) and half a sword (and half a hole)


this came from a nearly endless arguement (about the hole/half a hole) in a pub one night... i'm quite fond of how the logic works out

 

[TheTaco007]

This isn't really philosophy.

It's still a sword. It's just a broken sword.

 

[Continuity]

Just a quick one for you guys.

Is a sword still a sword, after it has been broken (shattered in pieces or broken in two, doesnt matter)?

Does it matter?

You could say that broken swords are a subset of the set of all swords.

You could say that as a broken sword cannot be used as a sword its no longer a sword, therefore they are two mutually exclusive subsets of the set of all items.

Whatever.

 

[oooooooooooooooooooooooooo]

I'm not sure if this is an attempt at the Theseus' Ship problem, if so you've left out half the information, which prevents this from really being a philosophical question. Presuming this is some half-formed Theseus' Ship problem, then yes, it is still the same sword.

 

[Xaio30]

How many grains of sand does it take to make a heap of sand?

And then:

Would't you still call it a heap after you remove one grain?

 

[Lyx]

Some questions:
If the only person observing the sword knows nothing of swords, is it still a sword?

Invalid question. The person has no knowledge of the concept "sword", so he cannot ask the question. It is neither a sword nor not-a-sword to him. He simply doesn't know that word and concept. However, he could analyze that thing, and come to understand what its purpose is and how it works. He may not call it sword, but he will have understood it.

If the sword has an imperceptible hairline fracture in it, is it still a sword - or a broken sword? Is it a broken sword only when you know of the break? Clearly the sword is broken, but there's no-one to observe it in that state.

What is the criterion for broken? How efficiently it achieves its purpose? In that case, we have a spectrum. Where YOU draw the line, is arbitrary, because there in truth is no "line".

What you come to realise is that "sword" is a convenient and simple, but imperfect and subjective, description of a thing. Brokenness is similarly a convenient and simple, but imperfect and subjective, description of a state of a thing.

No, neither "perfection" nor "subjective" exists. Appealing to subjectivity or objectivity is simply a lame-ass way to cop-out of a difficult problem, instead of investing the effort necessary to understand what's going on.

The interesting part is when one person sees a sword, and another sees a plough and they talk about it.

That is just words. Words obviously are arbitrary, just as you can use anything to symbolize something else. It is arbitrary, not because its "subjective", but because the symbol indeed does not matter - it is just a method to communicate what matters.

"Sword" is an opinion. "Broken" is an opinion. People with opinions go around bothering each other.

Oh god..... good that you spelled the thread-topic "filosofical"... it aproximates the level of philosophical thinking at work here. What is this thread - simply a hook to promote the belief in the subject/object dichotomy?

What you're dealing with here, is not an ontological issue. It's an issue of language and peoples lack of understanding language and themselves.