Topics Language

Question Suppose I was born on March 17, 2010, which was a Wednesday. I was born on a Wednesday. My question is whether the fact that I was born on a Wednesday is a "conventional", "artificial" or "socially constructed" fact (I'm not sure about the right words to use, but I'm sure you got the idea). But I want you to make a distinction. It is obvious that we could have another word for Wednesdays. We could have called them "Sonntags", or "Fourthdays", or "Potatoes", or whatever. But the days would still be the same. As we could have called dogs "cats", and cats "dogs", but the animals would still be the same. In my view, the fact that I was born on a Wednesday is NOT a conventional or socially constructed fact, but rather a strictly objective, perhaps even "natural" or "logical" fact. Unfortunately I haven't found anybody who agrees with me until now.

Accepted:
March 19, 2010

Comments

Thank you for your message. Your instincts about this issue are correct. We could have called Wednesdays something else, and that would not have changed when it was you were born. Abe Lincoln saw this long ago when he remarked, “How many legs does a dog have, if you call his tail a leg? The answer is four, because calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.”

So more precisely: It is in part a conventional fact that you were born on a day we call 'Wednesday'. It is not a conventional, or even partly conventional, fact that you were born in the moment in time that you were.