I decided to do an exercise in my classroom that would attempt to engage my students more deeply with the socratic method and perhaps help them realize its usefulness in their own lived realities. For some reason, reading about Socrates asking Euthyphro if what is pious is pious because it is loved by the Gods or whether the Gods love that which is pious was not really making much of a dent in my students’ understanding of the world, so instead I had them try to prove that they knew what a sandwich was. I put them in pairs and instructed them to create as clear and literal a definition as they could—one that encompassed all things they knew to be sandwiches, while providing criteria for excluding all those things that were obviously not sandwiches. Furthermore, anything they were going to submit as examples of a “sandwich” also had to pass the thought experiment of imagining ordering “a sandwich” in a restaurant and being brought that thing—because after all, this is an exercise about common knowledge. We all “know” what a sandwich is. Their definition had to somehow account for this shared mental understanding. So “a bowling ball between two pieces of lettuce” would not count, for example.

Reading this made me gain a greater respect and understanding of the way legal documents are phrased. Humans are both ingenious and disingenuous creatures...

Though there's something that bothers me. While I agree with the hotdog and taco... why is a hamburger not considered a sandwich? And why, either, was the pizza stack not considered a sandwich?

Because as it stands, I literally can't find why a hamburger isn't a sandwich, either - but then again, I'd probably need to apply the method to the burger to define what is and isn't a hamburger to get that answer, wouldn't I....

As for the pizza stack? By that definition, most submarine sandwiches (like Subway's 12 inch sandwich) aren't sandwiches until they're cut in half, thirds or quarters. Though admittedly, off the top of my head, a pizza had it's ingredients cooked onto it...

GAH SEE WHAT YOU DONE YOU MADE ME THINK

(In all honesty though, excellent read - I loved it)

posted 3150 days ago