"Wealthy" is a relative term, rather than an absolute one.

Thanks Cody, it's been a thought provoking debate. Con: "definitions need to be logical in order to be coherent." At the risk of repeating myself, there is no need for a definition to be grounded in rules of logic in order for it to be coherent or understandable. There is no logic that dictates that the word "cup" should refer to a drinking vessel. Meanings are established by social, rather than logical means. The meaning of some phrases and terms flies in the face of logic; a sheepdog is not some freakish hybrid of canine and ovine; the game of leapfrog does not involve actual amphibians; a foot pump doesn't inflate your foot and a ball pump doesn't inflate your testicles, so one must defy logic. Still these terms are coherent enough that there is no real question of what they mean. Cody's appeal to logic is entirely inappropriate to the task of defining words, language evolves in a social and often non logical context. Con: "My definition is only incoherent if you don't distinguish between descriptor and degree" No it's incoherent precisely because it doesn't distinguish between a metaphysical presence of wealth and the quantity implied by the actual definition of wealthy. 1. a) Con: "I think that feverish is blowing the "color" example far out of proportion" Cody was the one who brought up the issue of race and colour as supposed absolutes, which he perhaps should have anticipated might provoke a lengthy response from me. "He's actually pulling a lot of equivocation in terms of "white" and "black"... I'm talking strictly in terms of skin color." I'm surprised that someone who places so much value in the logical "coherency" of definitions, is comfortable using the race labels of black and white to discuss skin colour, as he notes himself, they bare little relation to the complexions he was describing. "Simply put, the wealth/poverty dichotomy isn't analogous to the black/white dichotomy." This is exactly the point I was making last round, it was Cody who made the comparison between the two. b. Con: ""Pro fails to realize that not all descriptors have degrees ...It goes back to the unaddressed descriptor/degree argument." It's not an unaddressed argument, I have asked Cody to explain how absolute descriptors can possibly have a gradual scaling of degree. There is no graduation between absolutes like life and death or true black (absolute darkness) and true white (absolute light), but between the extremes of being wealthy and living in poverty there is the kind of gradual shading effect we get between grey shades in images such as this: http://home.online.no... There is no grey area with absolute terms. Con: "The descriptor, solid, stays the same." No, in this case, it is clear that neither steel or oak are solid in any absolute sense; any solidity ascribed to them is entirely relative to the degree of force and the particular tools that are used to test it. Oak is solid compared to sponge, but compared to steel it is soft. c. Cody is back-tracking here and misrepresenting his own definition of absolute as "The truth or existence of it is not contingent on other entities or contexts", having already admitted that the degree of wealth can be affected and influenced by other factors to the extent that the term wealthy ceases to apply. For further clarification on the term absolute let's look at the additional definitions I posted in the original forum thread. # perfect or complete or pure # complete and without restriction or qualification # not limited by law # expressing finality with no implication of possible change; # something that is conceived or that exists independently and not in relation to other things; something that does not depend on anything else and is beyond human control; something that is not relative; "no mortal being can influence the absolute" # not capable of being violated or infringed http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu... So once again Cody, how can absolute terms possibly be affected by external influences and have differing degrees on a grey scale? He also claims that my definition of wealthy is "a man who possesses more than enough wealth to fulfill his needs", whereas as this is also in fact his own interpretation. I sourced in round 1: "An individual who is considered wealthy, affluent, or rich is someone who has accumulated substantial wealth relative to others in their society or reference group." 2. a. This is the issue of Cody's assertion that definitions need to be grounded in logic that I have already addressed at the top of this post. There is no logical reason why definitions should arise from logic, logic defines maths, but not vocabulary. Words are poetic. b. Con: "The next minute, the entire financial structure may crumble, and he may not be wealthy any longer." This clearly conflicts with the definitions of an absolute term. "the absolute fact that I am wealthy in the former context isn't at all affected by the fact that I'm miserably poor in the latter context." A transition from one context to the other is entirely feasible, so the level of wealth is not absolute. c/d. The main issue for both of these points was that absolutes aren't supposed to be affected by external factors in these ways. See "expressing finality with no implication of possible change" and "beyond human control, as well as Cody's own "not contingent on other entities". Con: "To say that there are people who are neither wealthy nor not wealthy makes absolutely no sense. A person has to be one or the other." Well the negative of wealthy is poor, and if we were to use a definition of wealthy as "more than you need" then obviously someone with exactly as much as they "need" would be neither wealthy or poor. The point though, is that being wealthy has different degrees, between absolute wealth (all the wealth in the world, technically impossible as wealth is defined by it's value) and absolute poverty, there are varying shades of grey. The specific point in this grey blur that you decide to define as the turning point is entirely arbitrary. As Cody pointed out, anything other than total darkness is not really black, but grey. That's absolute, being wealthy is not. e. Cody seems to acknowledge that "needs" are relative to an individual and even to a society. What he actually discusses are of course wants and desires rather than the basic needs for survival. Presumably a starving African would like health cover and a good education for their kids, just as much as a middle class American, they just wouldn't rationalise it as a "need". Therefore, with exactly the same amount of wealth an African could be wealthy, and an American not wealthy. The accuracy of the wealthy descriptor depends entirely on the external context of the society that the individual is in, both separate contexts that co-exist within the wider context of the modern world. Therefore it is relative to external factors, rather than absolute. 3. Cody continues to seek logical foundations for language, perhaps he should consider communicating solely in binary code. My "attempts to amalgamate contexts" have consisted of nothing more than demonstrating the relativity of the term wealthy, in regard to outside entities and external contexts such as different societies. Con: "you can't measure in terms of negatives." Palpably false, most positive descriptors have an opposite implying an absence, whether absolutes (total blackness is the absence of light, death is the absence of life) or relatives with differing degrees (short is the negative of tall, soft is the negative of solid, poor is the negative of wealthy). Cody believes A is A, but he also believes tall is short and rich is poor. Pretty meaningless if you ask me. Thanks to Cody and anyone reading, please vote for the stronger arguments. Pro.