Definitional retreat 47
(What can you call it then? How about calling it 'sitting on a deck-
chair at Blackpool?')Words are used with conventional meanings. If we are allowed to
deal with objections to what we say by claiming that they mean
something totally unusual, rational discourse breaks down
altogether.
The fallacy in a definitional retreat lies in its surreptitious
substitution of one concept for another, under the guise of
explaining what the words really mean. The support advanced
for the one position might not apply to its substitute. ('When I
said I hadn't been drinking, officer, I meant that I hadn't had more
than I get through in a normal social evening. 0
The definitional retreat allows someone beaten in an argu-
ment to save face by claiming that he was really putting forward
a totally different view. It also allows for a possible exception to
be eliminated by a more restrictive interpretation.
'You have no experience of dealing with terrorism. '
'Well, I did act as anti-terrorist adviser to the governments of Malaysia
and Singapore, and I spent four years at the US anti-terrorist academy. '
'I meant you have no experience of dealing with terrorists in England.'
(He should have made it Scunthorpe, to be even safer.)'When I said that we were ruled by tyrants, I was naturally referring to
the tax-collectors and administrators, rather than to Your Majesty. 'Definitional retreat is a favourite recourse of philosophers.
Their proposed definitions of 'virtue', 'the good', and even of
'meaning' itself, are set up like wickets for their colleagues to
bowl at. When the occasional googly scatters the stumps,
instead of walking back gracefully to the pavilion, the philoso-
pher is more likely to re-erect the stumps in a slightly different