Definition.pdf

3 Definition The 2010 US Supreme Court case McDonald v. City of Chicago marked a historic climax in this country’s debate over gun rights. Just two years prior, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court struck down a ba...

3 Definition The 2010 US Supreme Court case McDonald v. City of Chicago marked a historic climax in this country’s debate over gun rights. Just two years prior, in District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court struck down a ban on handguns in Washington, D.C., ruling that the Second Amendment guarantees US citizens individual gun owner- ship rights for the purpose of self-​defense. This decision resolved, in the negative, the question of whether the Second Amendment only protects the right to bear arms in relation to military service. But the ruling only applied to the federal govern- ment and districts under federal jurisdiction, like the District of Columbia. At the time, the Second Amendment was not taken to restrict state and local governments from implementing their own laws regarding gun ownership, even if those laws lim- ited a citizen’s federal gun ownership rights. Just hours after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Heller, four Chicago gun owners sued their city over a handgun ban similar to the one the Court had just struck down in Washington, D.C. When their case finally made its way to the Supreme Court in 2010, the question before the justices was whether the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, freshly interpreted as an individual right apart from military service, applied to gun legislation passed by state and local governments. Although many people assume that the Bill of Rights has always pro- tected citizens’ rights against infringement by the government at all levels, this fact has only been true since the last century. The Bill of Rights originally only applied to the federal government. This limited application changed, however, after the 1868 passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, the post–​Civil War constitutional adden- dum that guaranteed African Americans citizenship after it had been denied them in the Dred Scott decision (Amar 7). The Supreme Court has since interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment as guar- anteeing all citizens certain fundamental rights that no level of government may infringe upon, an interpretive outcome known as incorporation (Amar 7). By the end of the 1960s, the Supreme Court had ruled that most of the rights enumerated in the first eight amendments to the Constitution are fundamental (Curtis 203).1 There are two possible textual grounds for incorporation, found in a set of con- nected clauses in the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment: “No State shall 43 44 Arguing over Texts make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or prop- erty, without due process of law” (US Const. Amend. XIV, sec. 1; Curtis 2). Known as the privileges or immunities and due process clauses, respectively, these two clauses forbid state and local governments from infringing certain fundamental rights of citizenship. Historically, the due process clause has represented the only textual ground for incorporating portions of the Bill of Rights at the state and local levels, as the use of the privileges or immunities clause for this purpose was effectively lim- ited by a Court ruling in 1873 (Curtis 175).2 Despite this precedent, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in McDonald, Alan Gura, who represented the winning side in Heller, used the privileges or immunities clause as the primary textual support to argue for the incorporation of the right to bear arms, which would effectively strike down the handgun ban in Chicago. But this strategy required Gura to successfully do one essential thing: persuasively argue for a definition of the words privileges and immunities that would necessarily include this right. Here is how he began: In 1868, our nation made a promise to the McDonald family;3 they and their descendants would henceforth be American citizens, and with American citizenship came the guarantee enshrined in our Constitution that no State could make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privi- leges or immunities of American citizenship. The rights so guaranteed were not trivial. The Civil War was not fought because States were attacking people on the high seas or block- ing access to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.4 The rights secured by the Fourteenth Amendment were understood to include the fundamental rights honored by any free government.... (McDonald, oral argument 3; emphasis added) After providing some historical and legal framing, Gura defines the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges and immunities as those basic rights recognized by free gov- ernments anywhere. But like all definitions, Gura’s is disputable, and the Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia interrogate it: Justice Ginsburg: Does it work just one way? I mean, if the notion is that these are principles that any free society would adopt, well, a lot of free societies have rejected the right to keep and bear arms. Mr. Gura: As we mentioned—​as we mentioned in our brief, this Court in Benton v. Maryland decided that henceforth American history and tra- dition are important to consider what rights are protected in this country. It’s true that our friends overseas who have more or less civilized, free soci- eties don’t respect rights to the same level that we do.  Def inition 45 Justice Ginsburg: But this—​then it’s not one expression of this unenu- merated rights, natural rights, or the rights that any free society—​basic to a free society. So you—​you have to trim your definition. It’s not basic to any free society. Mr. Gura: As understood by the people who ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. It’s not a free-​flowing license, necessarily, for judges to announce unenumerated rights. However, to the extent that we have unenumerated rights which the framers and ratifiers didn’t literally under- stand, they nonetheless left us guideposts that we can—​ Justice Scalia: Well, what about rights rooted in the traditions and con- science of our people? Would—​would that do the job? Mr. Gura: Yes. (10–​11) In this exchange, Gura, Ginsburg, and Scalia disagree over how the sense of the terms privileges and immunities in the Fourteenth Amendment should be circum- scribed. They variously suggest that these words can be understood in terms of (1) those rights recognized by any free society, (2) the understanding of the framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment, or (3) the traditions and conscience of the American people. This debate over the scope of the terms privileges and immunities in the Fourteenth Amendment represents a dispute in the interpretive stasis of definition. Although arguments over the definition of words are in some ways similar to arguments over ambiguous words, they have distinct qualities that are worth studying separately and at length. These qualities may in fact lend more persuasive power to definitional arguments in certain circumstances. The Scope and Limits of a Term A question or dispute over the definition of a term in a text concerns the intended or appropriate scope, limits, or reach of the basic sense of that term. Any word in a text is subject to wrangling over its definition. If we think of terms as labels for categories of objects, then competing definitional readings of a single term repre- sent contrasting limits to what is included in a category and what is excluded. The previous chapter examined disagreements over passages that give rise to competing readings—​because a word, a grammatical construction, or a connection between the text and the situation is unclear—​whose differing senses bear little to no rela- tion to one another. In contrast, definitional disputes concern single words, or phrases that act as single words, whose competing readings are semantically related. In an ambiguity dispute over an unclear word, arguers believe they are wrangling over two separate words with two distinct senses that happen to have the same form. In a definitional dispute, arguers believe they are disputing the same word, whose basic 46 Arguing over Texts sense they agree on, but they disagree on the scope of this basic sense in the given text, arguing for different but related sub-​senses.5 Admittedly, the line between distinct and related senses is not always clear, and analysts should pay close attention to how rhetors approach a dispute.6 In the last chapter, we considered the sentence: The department is willing to pay for two additional speakers. Speaker has at least two distinct senses: a person who talks versus a piece of sound equipment. Although the two senses are etymologically related and both senses concern a source of projected sound (“Loudspeaker”), it is difficult to imagine a context in which the term speaker in an ordinary sense could be used to group both concepts together. But now consider the sentence: Would you pass me the knife? In this sentence, the word knife could signify a range of objects, from a piece of cutlery to a medical instrument to a weapon. However, unlike the term speaker, knife in its general ordinary sense, meaning “a sharp instrument for cutting,” can be used to signify all of these sub-​senses together at the same time. For example, the US Transportation Security Administration’s prohibition against passengers carrying knives onto airplanes extends to any kind of knife, regardless of its purpose (with the exception of plastic and butter knives). A question about the scope or definition of the word knife as it appears in a text would concern whether the word included all types of knives, some types of knives, or one particular type of knife. Competing definitions thus can overlap in what they include and, of course, what they exclude. For instance, one could have two competing readings of the word knife in a text: one in which the word is read as signifying any sharp instrument for cutting, and another in which only medical instruments are signified. Even though both readings include medical instruments, the debate would concern whether or not the term was intended to be so narrowly limited or to be all-​inclusive. Cicero offers a helpful invented example of a definitional dispute: A law states that “ ‘[w]‌hoever abandons ship in time of storm, shall lose everything; the ship and the cargo shall belong to those who have remained on the ship.’ ” As Cicero sets out the details, “Two men were sailing on the high seas; one owned the ship, the other, the cargo. They caught sight of a shipwrecked mariner swimming and begging for help. Taking pity on him they brought the ship alongside and took him on board” (De Inventione 2.51.153). After this successful rescue mission, a squall arose, imperiling the ship and all now aboard it. The owner of the ship retreated to the skiff that was being towed by the ship. Once in the skiff, he attempted to direct the ship using the towline. Meanwhile, the cargo owner attempted suicide with his own sword. The man who had been rescued from the sea took the helm and tried to save the ship. Eventually, the weather recovered and the ship was returned to port (2.51.154). The cargo owner who had attempted suicide recovered, and all three men made claims to the ship and cargo, appealing to the law stated in the previous paragraph and defining key words and phrases in the text in their favor. One key phrase is aban- don ship. What does it mean to abandon ship? Does it mean to physically leave the  Def inition 47 ship? In this case, the ship owner, who tried to steer the ship from the skiff, would lose both a claim to the cargo and his own ship. The cargo owner, who despite attempt- ing suicide remained onboard, would keep his cargo and may even have claim to the ship, along with the rescued sailor, who took the helm. Or perhaps abandon ship means to forsake or give up on the ship, which the cargo owner arguably did when he tried to kill himself. On the other hand, the ship owner, who endeavored to steer the ship in the storm from the skiff, would be able to keep his ship and, along with the rescued seaman, who attempted to steer the ship from onboard, would have a claim to some of the cargo as well. Or, further still, abandon ship could be defined broadly to encompass both physically leaving and otherwise forsaking the ship, a definition that would greatly benefit the rescued mariner, who physically remained on the ship (unlike the ship owner, who withdrew to the skiff) and took the helm (unlike the cargo owner, who tried to take his own life), giving him a claim to both the ship and the cargo. A judge would have to decide which definition applies in this situation (Cicero, De Inventione 2.51.154). This example from Cicero illustrates a typical dispute over the definition of a term in a text. But this type of interpretive issue can take different forms. Quintilian points out that another definitional question concerns familiar words used in a tech- nical or specialized sense (7.3.13). A layperson not fluent in a specialized discourse may interpret a term in a text with its more usual meaning, ignorant of its more particular use in the given context. For instance, we would expect modern maritime law to have a precise, technical definition of the term abandon ship. A contemporary judge would decide a case like the one recounted by Cicero according to this tech- nical definition, rather than how it might be used among landlubbers. Quintilian also notes that rhetors can argue over the meaning of “obscure or unknown words” (7.3.13). In these cases, the word is not ambiguous with compet- ing but clearly distinct senses, but rather its basic sense is unclear. Scholars who study ancient texts may come across words whose meanings are not known or are difficult to discern, especially words that appear once or only rarely in an avail- able corpus. For example, the meaning of the plural Greek noun arsenokoitai in 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10 has been hotly contested in part because the word appears in these two Pauline passages for the first time in extant Greek lit- erature, with no other recorded contemporary instances (Brownson 42). Because the word has often been understood to refer to “male homosexuals,” and because these verses condemn the arsenokoitai, its definition has been at the center of much debate among Christians as the church grapples with LGBTQ rights and inclusion. As with ambiguity, standard cases of definitional disputes concern the intended sense of the author. Only in special cases, as we might expect in literary criticism, do we observe rhetors arguing over unintended definitions. Similarly, in standard cases only one definition can hold, but in special cases multiple definitions may be entertained without necessarily excluding one another. These special cases of def- initional disputes do not seem to be as prevalent as their counterpart cases in the 48 Arguing over Texts stasis of ambiguity. This imbalance of prevalence may result from the fact that in fields where unintended or multiple senses are sought after, particularly in literary criticism, rhetors gets less mileage from arguing over the scope of a term’s sense than from arguing for another altogether different sense. Finally, as with ambiguity, there may also be asystatic cases of definition, in which there are no defensible con- trary positions. These cases can arise if there is incomplete contextual knowledge to decide on a definition, or if all of the contextual evidence falls on the side of one competing definition. There are two other types of definition that should be distinguished from the type of definition discussed in this chapter. The first is stipulative definition. A rhetor proposes a stipulative definition for a term to then be used in a particular context or discussion. Whenever the term is used by someone in that context, it will be understood as having this definition. With interpretive definition, however, a rhetor is not so much “proposing” a definition for a term as the rhetor is “discovering” the term’s intended or otherwise contextually bounded sense. This difference means that stipulative and interpretive definitional disputes have different sets of available arguments, although there is some overlap. Also not the subject of this chapter is a type of definition that might be called categorical.7 With categorical definitions, rhetors place objects into classes: Pluto is a planet. Categorical definitions have a reciprocal relationship with stipulative and interpretive definitions because defining the scope of a category term changes what belongs or does not belong in the category. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted on a stipulative definition of planet for astronomers around the globe: “A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-​gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydro- static equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit” (qtd. in International Astronomical Union). Pluto fails stipulation c, as there are a number of solar system bodies of similar size near it (International Astronomical Union). The IAU’s stipulative definition negates the earlier assertion of Pluto’s status as a planet. Setting aside these two other types of definition, rhetors have several possible lines of argument that they may use to defend or attack a definition of a term in a text. But before offering support for a particular definition, rhetors must first clearly state their preferred definition in a persuasive manner. Persuasively Articulating a Definition A rhetor wishing to argue for a particular scope of a word in a text should pro- vide a concise, easy to understand, and, if possible, typical definition (Cicero, De Inventione 2.17.53). In any interpretive dispute, it is usually important for rhetors to clearly articulate their preferred reading of a contested passage. But in definitional  Def inition 49 disputes, it is especially crucial that rhetors do so because these types of controver- sies concern fine distinctions between different readings of the same term. The dis- cursive form that a rhetor’s definition takes represents a major factor in persuading audiences to accept or reject a particular definition of a term in a text. The stated definition, therefore, should be clearly distinguished from competing definitions and should plainly set the limits or scope of the term. Quintilian shrewdly advises that the rhetor must “guard against giving a Definition which is perhaps unneces- sary, irrelevant, ambiguous, against [the rhetor’s] interests, or equally good for both sides” (7.3.20). For rhetors, the first order of business then is to understand their ultimate argu- mentative goal. According to Quintilian, “A correct Definition will be assured if we first decide in our own mind what we want to effect; it will then be possible to suit the wording to our purpose.” He gives the following example: “A man who has stolen private money from a temple is accused of sacrilege” (7.3.21). There is no question about the man’s action, but rather whether his action was sacrilegious. The prosecu- tor and defendant therefore dispute the meaning of the word sacrilege, which we will assume is expressly prohibited by a specific law. The prosecutor defines sacrilege as “ ‘stealing something from a scared place,’ ” while the defendant defines sacrilege as “ ‘stealing something sacred.’ ” The prosecutor defines sacrilege to include the action of the defendant in support of a harsher penalty. The defendant defines sacrilege so that his action falls outside the term’s scope to avoid a more severe punishment (7.3.22–​23). Once the rhetor has a goal in mind, the second order of business is to formu- late a persuasive definition that supports that goal. What form should a persuasive definition of a term in a text take? According to Quintilian, whose advice echoes Aristotle’s predicables, or ways of formulating propositions,8 there are four differ- ent strategies that rhetors can use to articulate a definition for a term. Rhetors can (1) place the term in a larger class or genus, (2) list the items or species covered by the term, (3) describe the non-​unique features of the term that all members in its class share, or (4) detail the features of the term that distinguish it from other mem- bers in the same class (5.10.55–​62).9 Each of these four strategies can be used to generate and articulate a definition of a term in a text. By placing a term within a genus, a rhetor defines a term with respect to the universal qualities of the class to which it belongs. Blasphemy is a type of sacri- lege. Here, blasphemy takes on the universal qualities of all types of sacrilege as being a violation against the sacred. By naming the species of a term, a rhetor can specify or give guidance as to what is and is not covered by the term. Blasphemy includes accusing God of an evil act, saying the Lord’s name in vain, or denying the supremacy of God. Although not an exhaustive list, the items in this list give the term a more def- inite scope. An exhaustive list, in which all members of the class represented by the term are given, restrictively outlines the term’s scope. There are no other possible members and so there is no question about the term’s reach if the list is accepted. 50 Arguing over Texts Reviewing the non-​unique features of a term can help, though not necessarily, confirm that something is covered by a term (Quintilian 5.10.58–​59). Blasphemy involves the desecration of the sacred. With this definition we know that if something does not desecrate the sacred, it is not blasphemy. And we know that if something does desecrate the sacred it might be blasphemy, although there are a number of other acts that desecrate the sacred, such as vandalizing a church, which would not fall under this classification. Using non-​unique properties alone to define a term is in general argumentatively weak because such properties do not sufficiently narrow the scope of what is covered by a term. Instead, stating the unique properties of an object represented by a term is a much stronger method of formulating a defini- tion. Blasphemy consists of making a verbal statement that disrespects the holiness of God. This definition separates blasphemy from other types of sacrilege. A version of identifying a term’s properties, whether unique or not, involves naming the constit- uent parts of the term, giving a kind of anatomy of it (Cf. Quintilian 5.10.54; Cicero, Topica 5.28). Each of these four strategies can also be used to state what a term is not. For example: Blasphemy is not an acceptable way of speaking about God. This sentence places blasphemy outside the larger category of acceptable speech about God. Although negative definitions cannot pinpoint a term the way positive definitions can, they work well to refute preconceived notions of a term, or to offer a stark con- trast between a term and what it is not. The power of negative definition can be seen in negative or apophatic theology, which seeks to describe God by defining what God is not. This approach to characterizing the divine reinforces notions of God’s transcendence and otherness and is often linked with mystical experiences that exceed ordinary experiences of physical reality. A persuasive definition is one that the audience feels is true and complete (Quintilian 7.3.23). In terms of the latter condition, relying on any one of the pre- ceding methods alone may not be enough to offer the audience a definition that feels complete. But in combination, even just two elements could impress upon the audience that the definition given is comprehensive. The classic form of a defini- tion perhaps feels most complete and involves giving the object’s genus along with its unique features (Fahnestock 235). Blasphemy is a type of sacrilege that consists of making a verbal statement that disrespects the holiness of God. This definition would likely feel complete to a range of audiences. Listing all of the possible species of a term is another way to achieve this sense of completeness. The sense that a defi- nition is true, however, cannot be so easily accomplished through its formulation. A definition that feels complete may persuade the audience that it is true, but not necessarily. These are two distinct qualities of a definition, which can be separately affirmed or denied. Once a definition is set before the audience, the rhetor can then adduce vari- ous lines of support to show either that it is correct and comprehensive, or that it is untrue and insufficient (Cicero, De Inventione 2.17.53; Quintilian 7.3.23). As  Def inition 51 originally suggested by ancient rhetoricians, arguers can appeal to usage conven- tions, etymology, co-​text, representative examples, and sensibility. Some of these common lines of argument will already be familiar to the reader since they were reviewed in the previous chapter, as they may also be employed in the stasis of ambi- guity. This fact is unsurprising given the similarities between the two stases. Defending and Attacking Definitions Usage Conventions As with ambiguous words and phrases, rhetors can support a particular definition of a term in a text by appealing to how a relevant community uses the word. One key relevant community is that which includes the readers of the text who are consider- ing the definitional question. Such arguments, as Cicero explains, “will be based on common belief when one considers how and in what connexion people are accus- tomed to use such a word in ordinary writing or speech” (De Inventione 2.17.54). Definitions that do not line up with ordinary usage may be harder to grasp and may even be suspect because they go against common sense. To oppose a definition of a term in a text, a rhetor may do well to contrast the disfavored definition with the term’s ordinary sense. Indeed, Cicero recommends charging the other side with “altering the meaning of the language” (2.18.56). As with debates over ambiguity, appealing to the ordinary sense of the word, as the audience understands it, can be very persuasive. Another key source of usage conventions in definitional disputes, as with dis- putes over ambiguity, is the community that the author is a part of, if the author is not part of the community of the audience considering the interpretive question. Evidence for these usage conventions can be found in dictionaries and in other documents circulating among the community in question. But since people are often a part of multiple communities, rhetors can appeal to different sets of com- munity conventions for the same author, resulting in competing definitions of the same term.10 Rhetors must show that the specific set of community conventions they appeal to is the appropriate one to apply. In these cases, the usage most familiar to the audience may prove to be more persuasive. We saw competing appeals to community conventions in the debate over one scientist’s use of the word trick in a leaked “climategate” email that opened the book’s first chapter. The word referred to the scientist’s combination of tempera- ture data from two different sources to create a graph that showed a spike in global temperatures starting in the 1960s, even though data from one of the sources actu- ally showed a dip. To many people, the term trick, coupled with the phrase hide the decline, suggested deception in line with the most common sense of the word as a devious ploy. This general understanding of the word trick was a particular problem for climate scientists seeking to defend their credibility in the wake of this mass 52 Arguing over Texts leak of damaging email. Some scientists, therefore, attempted to appeal to the usage conventions of the scientific community, where the word trick signifies a useful solu- tion to a problem. These opposing lines of argument were both possible because the author of the controversial email belonged to both the scientific community and the larger community of English speakers. However, it does not appear that the appeals to scientific convention were especially effective. When it comes to a disputed term in a translated text, rhetors can turn to the original language and its speakers’ usage conventions to support or oppose a defini- tion of that term. For example, in her nineteenth-​century pamphlet Female Ministry, Catherine Booth attacks prohibitions against women’s preaching based on stand- ard interpretations of such biblical passages as 1 Corinthians 14:34–​35: “Let your women keep silence in the Churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home; for it is a shame for women to speak in the Church” (qtd. in Booth 7; King James Version). Booth opposes the ordinary reading of this passage as a general prohibition against any type of speech act a woman might issue in church by turning to the definition of lalein, the Greek word translated as speak in this passage. She cites a number of Greek dictionaries and commentaries that, although they show that lalein can mean speaking in a gen- eral sense, give evidence of narrower senses, including prattling, babbling, and mak- ing inarticulate sounds (8–​9). Based in part on this evidence, Booth concludes that the Greek word for speaking in this passage is more properly interpreted as “incon- venient asking of questions, and imprudent or ignorant talking” (7). Therefore, Paul was not proscribing women from speaking at all, but rather was commanding them to refrain from inappropriate speech. Returning to the original language may be a common rhetorical move in disputes over definitions, and ambiguities, involving translated texts. Etymology Another strategy rhetors can use to defend or attack a definition involves pointing to a term’s lexical origins or historical senses, often by breaking the term into parts whose individual significations reveal its lexical roots or earlier senses—​the clas- sic argument from etymology (Quintilian 1.6.29, 7.3.25).11 Etymology represents a real site of inquiry within language scholarship in which researchers trace the origins and histories of the forms and meanings of words. These scholarly etymolo- gies can in turn be cited by rhetors to support their definitions of words in texts. But an etymological argument need not be scholarly to be persuasive. There exist a number of “folk” etymologies of words, explanations of the origin or history of a word not rooted in linguistic evidence or theory, which can also lend persuasive support to definitional arguments. (To be sure, the line between a scholarly ety- mology and a folk etymology is not always clear; see Del Bello 4.) In either case,  Def inition 53 etymological arguments can be quite powerful because they appeal to many peo- ple’s sense that what is old, ancient, or original is primary and authoritative. People generally believe that the older or original sense of a word or its parts represents its true or deeper meaning. Appeals to etymology lend authority to the rhetor’s favored definition by linking this definition to an older sense. Arguing that a dis- favored definition is unrelated to an older or original sense conversely erodes the standing of that definition. Despite their power, etymological arguments can be refuted. Rhetors can chal- lenge an etymology on evidential or theoretical grounds and can offer alternative etymologies. Rhetors can also refute etymological appeals by challenging the often assumed underlying premise, mentioned in the previous paragraph, that the true meaning of a word is to be found in its older or original senses. This premise has been attacked since antiquity—​largely unsuccessfully since it remains a widespread belief—​based on the observation that words derive their meanings from how lan- guage users employ them. Although the usage of a word does emerge from its pre- vious uses, a historical meaning may be just that—​the sense of a word at a previous time. An etymology can provide a window into a term’s prior senses and therefore can offer clues about a later sense, but a prior sense is not necessarily a deeper or truer one. In his book Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama from Shakespeare to Southerne, Anthony Gerard Barthelemy explores rep- resentations of black characters in English dramatic works from the late sixteenth through seventeenth centuries. Barthelemy begins his exploration in the first chap- ter by detailing the etymology of the word Moor, a word often used in English drama during this period to refer to black characters, citing scholarly authorities throughout his discussion. Noting that the use of the word at the time “is difficult to define precisely,” he seeks to clarify its basic connotations (6). He starts with the word’s probable ancient Greek roots in Mauros, an ethnic term for people who lived in Mauretania, what is now Morocco and Algeria. Another similar Greek word, the adjective amauros, meant “dark, or dim.” Although Barthelemy admits it is not clear that the two words are related, he argues that the more significant point is that “mau- ros was used as a synonym for black.” Next, he observes that Mauros came into Latin as Maurus, still as an ethnic term, but over the course of the Middle Ages this term and its permutations became “synonyms for black” (8). Barthelemy then turns his attention to the medieval Spanish word Moro, which he claims was taken from the Greek, used to identify “Muslim conquerors” (9). Quoting an etymological dictionary, he notes that Moro eventually signified “gen- tile,” “pagan,” and “unbaptized,” and soon afterward the word was applied to people with dark skin (9–​10). Barthelemy also points out that European Christians at the time associated Muslims with the devil and that “one of the devil’s most impor- tant and common characteristics is his supposed blackness” (10). When Moor was applied to Africans in the seventeenth century, he argues, it transferred onto them 54 Arguing over Texts “the pejorative meanings associated with Muslim and Mohammedan” in a way that the term African did not (12–​14). Given the diverse uses of the term over time, Barthelemy maintains that although the word did not have one precise meaning in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies, its negative associations were clear: “What we see is the continuous use of Moor to serve as a general term for those who were strange. This strangeness may have been religious, ethnic, or national, though frequently it was a combination of the three. At no time was the strangeness of those who were identified as Moors viewed neutrally or benignly.” This sociolinguistic legacy then helps explain how the word Moor and representations of Moors were perceived by audiences of English drama: “Similarly, when Moors came to be impersonated on the stage either by masked royalty or by actors, they too inherited a legacy of several centuries of prej- udice” (17). By tracing the forms and senses of Moor through the centuries and by arguing that these past senses were not shed but rather accumulated over time, Barthelemy concludes that in English drama this common term for black characters connoted a host of pejorative meanings, including Other, non-​Christian, and even devilish. Co-​text As with disputes over ambiguities, rhetors arguing over the definition of a word in a text may appeal to the text surrounding the disputed word to support their defini- tions and to attack competing ones. This strategy was used in a series of cases from 2009 to 2012 concerning federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. The dispute concerned a passage in the Dickey-​Wicker Amendment, a provision that has been appended to Congress’s annual budget legislation for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since 1996. The amendment bars funding for research involving the destruction of human embryos. This provision had originally been passed before human embryonic stem cells were isolated, a process in which human embryos are destroyed. But in a couple of years, scientists developed several embry- onic stem cell lines for use in research. (A cell line is a self-​perpetuating collection of cells that all derive from the same cellular parent.) In 2001, President George W. Bush limited federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from already existing lines due to ethical concerns about the destruction of embryos. But in 2009, President Barack Obama undid this limitation. The NIH responded to Obama’s executive order by issuing guide- lines for conducting federally funded research with embryonic stem cell lines that had been developed since Bush’s original order. The NIH was then sued by James Sherley and Theresa Deisher, among other plaintiffs eventually dropped from the case, who conducted research with adult stem cells that do not require the destruc- tion of human embryos. Arguing that the changes in the NIH guidelines would  Def inition 55 make it more difficult for adult stem cell researchers to procure funding, Sherley and Deisher claimed that these new rules violated the Dickey-​Wicker Amendment. The government, represented by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, disagreed. The US District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with Sherley et al. and issued an injunction halting all stem cell research funded by the NIH. The government appealed this decision to the US Court of Appeals, the high- est federal court in which a case may be heard before reaching the Supreme Court. Their disagreement turned on the first instance of the word research in the fol- lowing passage from the amendment: “Prohibits any funds made available in PL 104-​91 [from] being used for... research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research under applicable Federal regulations” (The Balanced Budget Downpayment Act, sec. 128; emphasis added). Does research narrowly include only those projects that are directly responsible for the destruction of human embryos? Or does research more broadly include projects that, although not directly responsible for destroying human embryos, use stem cells derived from destroyed embryos? A broader definition would mean that the NIH could not fund any research involving embryonic stem cells. Sherley et al. argued for a broad definition of the word. In response to this inter- pretation, the government made the following argument, articulated in a brief to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit: [T]‌he language of the Dickey-​Wicker amendment precludes the district court’s extension of the statute to encompass matters that occurred prior to the research being funded. The amendment clearly speaks in the pres- ent tense. It specifically prohibits funding of “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death[.]” (emphasis added). The amendment does not bar funding for research that uses embryonic stem cells from a stem cell line that may have been derived a dozen years earlier and used in hundreds of other types of research, as is the case with the H9 stem cell line.12 (West et al. 30) In this argument, the government points to the tense of the verb are destroyed, which is the predicate of the subject human embryo or embryos in the clause modifying the word research. Since this verb is in the present tense, the government contends, the amendment cannot be construed as prohibiting research that uses cell lines derived from human embryos destroyed in the past. This use of co-​text supports the govern- ment’s position that the scope of the word research should be understood narrowly such that the amendment permits funding for research projects that use embryonic stem cells but that do not destroy human embryos themselves. 56 Arguing over Texts Representative Examples Earlier we saw that rhetors may articulate the definition of a term by giving exam- ples of objects covered by the term (Quintilian 5.10.55). But outside of an exhaus- tive or comprehensive list, which in many cases may be difficult if not impossible to generate, articulating a definition in this manner may not satisfactorily delimit the scope of a term for an audience whether in support of or against a reading of the term (5.10.57). Of course, sometimes rhetors prefer not to nail down the precise scope of a term to provide more interpretive wiggle room, and so giving a non-​ comprehensive list of examples may serve this purpose. In other cases, where a rhe- tor wishes to more precisely communicate the bounds of a term, the classic form of giving the genus, or larger category of the term, with the term’s unique features will be preferable. In this case, a rhetor may provide representative examples to further support or flesh out the definition. Rhetors use representative examples to characterize the scope of a term and to help the audience infer other cases that might also be covered. The savvy selection of representative examples can help persuade an audience to accept a particular def- inition of a term in a text. Representative examples can serve different character- izing functions with respect to their given term. Some examples represent what is typical for a term, others a term’s ideals, some the worst or nightmare instances of a term, still others are simply those members that stand out or are salient to an audi- ence (Lakoff 160–​161). Representative examples may serve other functions as well. We find this strategy at work in a nineteenth-​century epistolary debate over the right of women to preach. The debate, which originally transpired through the reli- gious journal Church Advocate, concerns the definition of the word preacher. Ellen Stewart argues that the word preacher includes women, while William Johnston argues that the word is limited to men.13 Both ground their arguments in the Bible. Some readers will immediately note that this exchange represents a categorical rather than an interpretive definitional dispute, as Johnston and Stewart argue over whether women should be included in the category represented by the word preacher, rather than its sense in a specific biblical passage. However, because this word depends largely on the biblical text for its meaning and because its definition determines how several passages in the Bible are understood, we may treat this exchange as an interpretive dispute in effect. In one letter, Johnston argues that the word preacher only extends to men because the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, only provides examples of male preach- ers; there are no biblical examples of female preachers (Stewart 172). He charges anyone to “shew from the Scriptures, that women were called to do the work of an evangelist, to make full proof of their ministry, to preach the word, and to study to shew themselves work-​women that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of the Lord” (173; italics original). Since preaching the word is an attribute of an evangelist, if a woman from the Bible were found to be an evangelist, she would be a  Def inition 57 preacher, and the term preacher could be extended to women, giving them the right to preach. In response to Johnston’s challenge, Stewart begins with a dictionary definition of evangelist: “Our dictionary says, the work of an evangelist is to instruct in the Gospel.” With this definition, she is able to list several examples of women in the Bible who were evangelists because they educated others in the Gospel: Anna, the woman of Samaria, Priscilla, and the women who “labored with [Paul] in the Gospel.” For instance, referring to John 4:1–​45, she writes, “The woman of Samaria did it [instructed in the Gospel], when she spoke the word of life to the men of her city, and many believed on Him [ Jesus] for her saying” (175). By placing the examples of these biblical women, the term evangelist, and the term preacher in a chain of definitional relationships, she makes the argument that the term preacher should be widened to include women, because there are in fact bib- lical examples of female preachers, contrary to Johnston’s claim. These examples, if accepted by her audience, have weight because they come from a source her audience held as authoritative, the Bible. We could call them authoritative exam- ples because their ability to represent the term preacher comes from the authority of their source, rather than their perceived typical or ideal nature. To be sure, any item in a representative, or comprehensive, list can be disputed. And rhetors can give alternative examples to support competing definitions of a term in a text. The representative status of an example, even if not excluded as a par- ticular instance of the term, can also be disputed. A rhetor can say that the example is an outlier or otherwise unique and that it cannot serve to characterize the gen- eral scope of the term. Articulating specific instances of a given term in a text thus represents a powerful, but not unassailable, means of arguing for the definition of that term. Sensibility The previous strategies, in one way or another, are all concerned with the veracity of a definition. But as with arguments over ambiguity, rhetors may also argue for or against a definition of a word in a text based on that definition’s sensibility. As Cicero explains, “The definition of the opponents may also be attacked if we show that to approve it is dishonourable and inexpedient, and point out what disadvantages will follow if their definition is accepted... and if we compare our definition with that of our opponents and prove that ours is true, honourable, and expedient...” (De Inventione 2.17.54; cf. [Cicero] 2.12.17). Appealing to these values or other stan- dards of sensibility is persuasive because definitions, once adopted, can have real consequences, especially when the text in which the contested word appears gov- erns our beliefs and actions. One point of contention in the dispute between Sherley et al. and the US gov- ernment over the legality of using federal funds to support embryonic stem cell 58 Arguing over Texts research was the reasonableness of the two sides’ definitions of the word research in the Dickey-​Wicker Amendment. As summarized in the Court of Appeals’s opinion that vacated the lower court injunction halting NIH-​funded embryonic stem cell research, Sherley et al. contended during oral arguments that the “[NIH]’s under- standing of Dickey-​Wicker is unreasonable.... because the standard definition of ‘research’ requires some kind of scientific inquiry, and deriving ESCs [embryonic stem cells], standing alone, involves no such inquiry, [therefore] the act of deriva- tion can be deemed ‘research’ only if it is part of a larger project” (Sherley 395). In other words, the derivation of embryonic stem cells, which requires the destruction of human embryos, is not research in itself, when the term is interpreted reasonably, but is a necessary step in the process of any embryonic stem cell research. Cell line derivation and research on embryonic stem cells thus cannot be divided into two separate research projects, one past (and therefore ineligible for federal funding) and one present (and therefore eligible for funding), and so any federally funded embryonic stem cell research would fall afoul of the statute. But the Court was not convinced. Although it acknowledged that treating the derivation of embryonic stem cells as research in and of itself “is not the ordinary reading of that term,” the Court maintained that the NIH’s definition was no less reasonable than the one supported by Sherley et al., which it found dubious. As the Court explains, “To define derivation as ‘research,’ in other words, makes at least as much sense as to treat the one-​off act of derivation as though it had been performed anew each time a researcher, however remote in time or place, uses a stem cell from the resulting line.” The Court concluded that focusing on the word research itself does not resolve this definitional dispute, but found the government’s argument from co-​text, reviewed earlier in the chapter, concerning the tense of the verb are destroyed persuasive (Sherley 396). Ultimately, the courts ruled in favor of the gov- ernment’s interpretation of the word research, thus permitting the NIH to continue funding human embryonic stem cell research. Other Contextual Strategies Detailed in the preceding are some of the more common lines of argument availa- ble to rhetors arguing in the stasis of definition. But certainly other strategies that we discussed in the previous chapter, such as appealing to facts about the author’s biography or appealing to the physical, social, and cultural context of a text, could be employed in this stasis as well. The classical rhetorical manuals, however, do not mention these strategies in connection with this stasis. The reason for this omission may be that while these appeals to context may work well for arguing over distinct, unrelated senses of a word or phrase, they may not be as useful for arguing over the finer distinctions of one basic sense. Analysts should remain on the lookout for these other types of arguments in definitional disputes, and rhetors should always employ the best of the available options.  Def inition 59 Linchpin Terms: The Keys to Reframing Passages and Controversies When arguing in this stasis, rhetors should be mindful of not only the strategies they employ to support their definitions, but also which words they choose to define. Some words in a text are more essential than others in a given debate. Defining these words can shape how entire passages are read and thus how the situation the pas- sage is applied to is understood. Consider the ongoing dispute among American evangelical Christians over the meaning of the word dominion as it appears in sev- eral English translations of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis.14 In the wake of the modern environmental movement, evangelical Christians have sought to ground their responses to putative environmental crises in what they believe to be the divinely established relationship between humanity and nature as stipulated in the Bible. Two verses that are often used for this textual grounding are Genesis 1:26 and 28. In these verses, God gives humanity dominion over the earth and everything that lives in it: Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” [... ] God blessed them [humankind], and God said to them, “Be fruitful and mul- tiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (emphasis added) Broadly speaking, two sides have developed with respect to the question of how to define the word dominion in these verses in the context of the debate over how Christians should approach the environment. In a paper given in 1999 at a conference hosted by the National Association of Evangelicals on poverty and environmental stewardship, E. Calvin Beisner, founder and national spokesman of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, an interfaith and inter- disciplinary coalition committed to advancing a “biblical view” of environmen- talism,15 interpreted Genesis 1:28 thus: “While tender cultivation is suited to a garden, forceful subduing is suited to all of the earth that has not yet been trans- formed into the garden.... Adam’s dominion mandate involved his transforming, bit by bit, the rest of the earth from glory to glory” (“Dominion” 5; emphasis added). Beisner in effect defines dominion as a divine directive that requires humans to master and remake the earth into a garden. This definition character- izes nature as chaotic and unordered, with humans as sovereign rulers charged with taming its chaos. 60 Arguing over Texts Opposite of individuals like Beisner, the National Association of Evangelicals itself, which claims to be “a united voice for millions of American Evangelicals,” defines the word dominion differently (“About Us”). In a 2004 statement exhorting evangelicals to be civically engaged, the Association wrote, “We affirm that God-​ given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not the owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to ‘watch over and care for it’ (Gen 2:15)” (“For the Health” 11; emphasis added). Here, the definition of dominion is not forceful transformation, but stewardship. Humans do not own the earth, nor do they have a mandate to subdue it, but instead they are divinely charged to protect and guard it. The controversy over the scope of the word dominion represents more than a quib- ble over the semantic meaning of a single word in an ancient Hebrew text. This con- flict represents a broader disagreement over the “biblical approach” to environmental issues and action. These opposing definitions invoke opposing approaches that pro- vide different answers to questions regarding issues like climate change, deforestation, and species extinction. Based on a definition of dominion as sovereign rule, Beisner’s Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation prefers private, free market eco- nomic action over government intervention as a solution to perceived environmen- tal issues (“The Cornwall Declaration”). In contrast, the National Association of Evangelicals, defining dominion as watching over and caring for, argues for govern- ment action in the areas of resource and wildlife management, energy consumption, and citizen protection from the ill effects of pollution (“For the Health” 12). Of course there are several other words from Genesis 1:26 and 28, such as fruit- ful, multiply, and subdue, whose definitions could help inform a Christian approach to the environment. Indeed, these terms have also received interpretive attention and are disputed, but the term dominion seems to be of central concern. Why? If we were to order or rank the relative importance of all of the various words in these verses with respect to the degree that they influence the meaning of these passages in the context of this controversy, dominion would be near or at the top. Its defini- tion represents the basis for defining all other terms in the passage. But the terms fruitful, multiply, and subdue would have their place as well. While they would fall behind dominion, they appear to have a higher status than terms like fish, birds, and cattle, which in turn appear to be above terms like and, the, and that.16 This hierarchy of terms recalls discussions by twentieth-​century rhetoricians Kenneth Burke and Richard Weaver of what they call ultimate terms. As Weaver explains, ultimate terms are those words “about which all other expressions are ranked as subordinate.... [Their] force imparts to the others their lesser degree of force, and fixes the scale by which degrees of comparison are understood.”17 In short, they represent a society’s “ ‘rhetorical absolutes’ ” (212). For example, the words security, rights, and innovation arguably have an ultimate or absolute cachet in early twenty-​first century America. A similar principle of ordering words can be seen in the interpretation of any text. The meanings of certain words in a text deter- mine the meanings of other words, whose meanings in turn determine the meaning  Def inition 61 of still other words. These governing terms, however, need not have the cultural status of an ultimate term, although they can. These terms instead have linchpin status with respect to the interpretation of the passages they appear in. What accounts for the status of linchpin terms? Cognitive linguistics, a branch of linguistics that investigates the relationship between lan- guage structure and general mental processes, offers some insights.18 According to research from this field, the concepts symbolized by words do not exist as isolated units of knowledge. Rather, they are organized, structured, and given meaning as part of larger, coherent conceptual units in our minds, based on our experience and knowledge of the world. Cognitive linguists call these larger conceptual units frames. Consider the word weekend, which several cognitive linguists have used to illustrate the concept of frames. Weekend, as used by most English speakers, can only be understood within the frame of our Western, industrial society’s calendar unit of a seven-​day week, with five days devoted to one’s job and two days intended for leisure and rest. Other words, like workweek, also exist as part of this larger frame. Readers generally interpret passages and texts as having coherent sets of frames. Every word in a text symbolizes a concept that fits into these frames, with all of the words in a passage or text having particular frame-​determined relationships to one another. But a frame itself can be symbolized by a single word in a text. And a frame can encompass smaller frames that can also be symbolized by single words, resulting in hierarchies of frame-​symbolizing words (Croft 168). The interpretation of these frame-​symbolizing words determines the interpretation of all of the other words that fit within the frame. For example, our understanding of the word calendar in a text would govern how we would understand the word workweek in the same text, assuming the terms were related. Understanding calendar in our Western, industrial context would give us a five-​day unit repeated throughout the year as the definition of workweek. But understanding calendar as referring to the timekeeping of a per- haps non-​Western, agricultural society might give us a different sense of workweek, perhaps as a seasonally occurring unit of days during planting and harvest. Calendar in this text would be a frame-​symbolizing word. Such frame-​symbolizing words are the linchpin terms that govern the meaning of whole passages and texts.19 But linchpin terms can index multiple competing frames, which readers then must resolve through argument. In definitional disputes over a linchpin term, rhetors are essentially arguing over which of two or more related frames symbol- ized by the disputed term should be employed to understand the larger passage. In the debate over what approach to take toward environmental issues, evangelical Christians face a fundamental question concerning the nature of the relationship between humanity and the earth. In Genesis 1:26 and 28, the term dominion comes closest to encapsulating this relationship because, whatever its specific meaning, dominion indexes a power relationship between people and the rest of creation. The competing definitions of this term, forceful subduing versus caretaking, represent alternative ways of framing this power relationship, which in turn shapes how evan- gelicals interpret the rest of the passage, and even other passages in the Bible, and 62 Arguing over Texts thus how they approach the environment. It is no wonder that this particular term’s definition in this text is so hotly contested. The linchpin status of a term is also determined in part by the rhetorical situation of the interpretive dispute. For a word in a text to be so pivotal in a debate, it must symbolize a frame relevant to that debate. While dominion represents a key term in a biblical debate over environmentalism grounded in Genesis 1, its definition would matter less in a debate over homosexuality, in which the words fruitful and multi- ply would take on larger significance. Other aspects of the rhetorical situation that influence the linchpin status of a term in a text include a term’s cultural significance, how it has been defined before, and the history of the dispute over the passage it appears in. I do not mean to say that rhetors have no choice in the terms they choose to define and dispute. But their effective choices are constrained by the semantic structure of the text and the rhetorical situation. That said, the linchpin status of a term can be elevated or lowered through argument. It is also possible to have sep- arate terms competing for the same linchpin status, which would offer rhetors yet another choice in how to frame a passage or debate. So far this discussion has concerned definitional disputes over linchpin terms, but linchpin terms can also be ambiguous. When the definition of a linchpin term is debated, the competing alternative frames share a semantic base. But when the meaning of an ambiguous linchpin term is debated, the competing alternative frames are felt to be distinct and unrelated. Ambiguous linchpin terms would there- fore appear to offer more radical choices in interpreting a passage. The ability to more radically alter how a passage is read could be advantageous in some circum- stances, particularly if the rhetor wants to jettison the opposing reading. But in other cases, it is more advantageous to build on a shared understanding of the basic sense of the word in question. It is certainly much easier to argue that a term should be understood as having a different shade of meaning than to argue that a term should be understood to have a completely different sense. That definitional arguments are concerned with shades of meaning does not, however, diminish their interpretive power. Through the definition of a single linchpin term, rhetors can effect signifi- cant shifts in the framing of not only whole passages and texts but also issues and perspectives based on those passages and texts. Whether the scope or basic sense of a linchpin term is argued, these special words represent a rhetorical means of per- suading audiences to change how they view a text or textually informed situation. McDonald v. Chicago: A Constitutional Debate over Gun Rights as Fundamental “Privileges” and “Immunities” The beginning of the chapter introduced the legal dispute in McDonald over the definition of the words privileges and immunities in the Fourteenth Amendment.  Def inition 63 Arguing for the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court, Gura attempts to persuade the justices that these terms should be redefined such that they encompass the Second Amendment. If accepted by the justices, this new definition would render state and local bans on guns unconstitutional. In the following paragraphs I examine some of the exchanges between Gura and the justices concerning the definition of these key terms. These selected exchanges illustrate the complex ways that arguments from examples and arguments from sensibility can work to support and refute proposed definitions of terms in texts. After Gura defines privileges and immunities to mean those “fundamental rights honored by any free government” (McDonald, oral argument 3), Ginsburg works to point out examples that demonstrate that his definition is false. According to Gura, there may be several fundamental rights currently not protected against all levels of government that should be, and these fundamental rights may be discerned by looking at those rights generally recognized by free societies. Both of these points can be argued through particular examples. Ginsburg tackles the first point by ask- ing Gura, “What unenumerated rights would we be declaring privileges and immu- nities under your conception of it?” (5). Gura, who balks at giving an exhaustive list, answers with some representative examples: If a right is, for example, the sort of right that was mentioned in the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the piece of legislation enacted by a supermajority of Congress, where the Congress said, over President Johnson’s veto, here are the rights of American citizenship, and they are—​they listed: To make and enforce contracts; to sue, be parties, and give evidence; to inherit, pur- chase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property. (8–​9) Ginsburg then observes that “a large portion of the population at that time didn’t have those rights” (9). Gura admits that certain groups did not fully enjoy certain rights but argues that America has grown in protecting the rights of all its citizens. Ginsburg then turns her attention to how Gura’s definition ties these fundamen- tal rights to their recognition by other free governments and notes that “a lot of free societies have rejected the right to keep and bear arms.” Again, Gura concedes that other democratic countries do not have the same degree of freedom that the United States does: “For example, England, which is a free society, has a monar- chy. They have hereditary lords in parliament. They don’t have First Amendment protection.” With these admissions in hand, Ginsburg concludes, as we saw at the beginning of the chapter, “[T]‌hen it’s not one expression of [these] unenumerated rights, natural rights, or the rights that any free society—​basic to a free society. So you—​you have to trim your definition” (10). As Ginsburg explains, Gura’s defini- tion is undercut by the fact that there are fundamental rights that the United States has not universally recognized for all people at all times and by the fact that there are free governments that do not recognize some of the freedoms declared in the Bill of 64 Arguing over Texts Rights. This exchange illustrates that examples used to substantiate a definition can be turned against that definition to refute it, if they are recontextualized, and that counterexamples, even if they are exceptions, can likewise invalidate a definition. Later in oral arguments, during his rebuttal, Gura is given another chance to offer examples to support his definition of privileges and immunities, examples that Ginsburg again uses to argue against his definition. Justice Anthony Kennedy asks Gura to give “examples of privileges and immunities that are being denied by the States,” besides the right to bear arms, which his definition in effect would protect (McDonald, oral argument 61). Together, Gura and Kennedy come up with two provisions in the Bill of Rights that match this description: the right to a grand jury in capital crimes and the right to a jury trial in civil cases, enumerated in the Fifth and Seventh Amendments, respectively (62). These examples help to characterize the scope of Gura’s defini- tion. In response, Ginsburg indicates that incorporating these two rights would be challenging to implement, an argument from sensibility: “[U]‌nder your view, every State would have to use a grand jury to bring criminal charges; no more information. And that every State would have to have a civil jury, if any party in the case requested it” (McDonald, oral argument 62–​63). For Ginsburg, these examples illustrate why Gura’s definition of the terms privileges and immunities should not be accepted: it does not account for practical concerns. Although Gura disagrees with Ginsburg that ease of execution should be a factor in determining fundamental rights—​“[I]t’s what the framers of the Constitution said.... [T]he right to a jury trial, for example, may not be efficient, but it is free” (63)—​this exchange illustrates another risk of using examples to characterize the scope of a term. A rhetor on the other side of a definitional dispute can use the supplied examples to point out negative consequences of the proposed definition that make the definition less appealing. Ginsburg’s intimation that practicality should be taken into account in defin- ing the terms privileges and immunities echoes an earlier discussion during oral arguments prompted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. During this earlier exchange, Sotomayor asks Gura: What injustice has been caused by it [the Supreme Court decision that defined privileges and immunities such that these terms could not be used to incorporate amendments at the state and local levels] that we have to remedy? Meaning States have relied on having no grand juries; states have relied on not having civil trials in certain money cases; they have relied on regulating the use of firearms based on us, the Court, not incorporat- ing the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the way that you identify it.... What—​in which ways has ordered liberty been badly affected? (McDonald, oral argument 4–​5) In essence, Sotomayor asks Gura to list the negative effects of the contested terms’ current definition, an appeal to sensibility, in order to support his argument that the  Def inition 65 definition should be changed. But Gura refuses to list any such effects and responds by saying, “Justice Sotomayor, States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into some- thing that is constitutional” (5). Rather than listing the negative effects of the status quo to justify the need to change the definition of these terms, Gura simply main- tains that the current definition is unconstitutional, that it is false. Although argu- ments from sensibility can be persuasive, they tie a definition’s status to pragmatic concerns rather than to principle. But rhetors may prefer to justify their definitional arguments on loftier grounds, in this case constitutionality. Refusing to take prag- matic considerations into account can be persuasive. In the end, the Court rejected Gura’s argument for redefining privileges and immu- nities and therefore incorporating the Second Amendment through the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges or immunities clause. Part of the problem may have been Gura’s inability to satisfactorily outline the limits of the term. As Justice Samuel Alito observes in the opinion, “petitioners are unable to identify the [privileges or immunities] Clause’s full scope” (McDonald 10). Instead, the Court, in a 5–​4 deci- sion, incorporated the right to bear arms through the due process clause, following previous decisions that had incorporated other portions of the Bill of Rights in this manner.20 The ultimate legal outcome Gura sought was still achieved, but through different interpretive means. The Power of Defining a Single Term In many treatments of interpretive uncertainty, definition is collapsed under the heading of ambiguity. But as this chapter has shown, definition as an interpretive issue is distinct from that of ambiguity. In contrast to disputes over ambiguity, in disputes over a term’s definition the participants agree on the basic sense of the word. This common ground influences the types of argument that are available in a definitional dispute, as rhetors do not have to marshal evidence for and against unrelated senses. Instead, the rhetor in a definitional dispute builds on this agreed-​ upon basic sense and effects change in the way a passage is interpreted through finer distinctions in the meaning of a word. It may be easier to change an audience’s mind about the meaning of a word if the argued change is one of degree rather than kind. Still, as we have seen in the preceding examples, these finer distinctions of meaning can have a significant impact on how a passage is interpreted and how a larger issue hinging on that passage is understood and resolved. Any word in a text can be argu- mentatively defined, but the effect of a definition is heightened when rhetors define linchpin terms, words that symbolize and therefore control the way a passage and the issue that depends on it are framed. It appears that disputes over definition abound in law, while disputes over ambi- guity are more prevalent in literary criticism, as exemplified by the extended cases 66 Arguing over Texts analyzed in the previous and current chapters. Of course, only an empirical study of instances of arguments in these two fields could confirm this hunch. Certainly one can find ambiguity disputes in law and definitional disputes in literary criti- cism. But it does not seem like too much of a stretch to say that ambiguity is the archetypical issue of literary criticism and that definition is the archetypical issue of law. Understanding the rhetorical affordances of each, ambiguity and definition, can help us see why. In literary criticism, or whenever a text is treated aesthetically or specially valued in the way that literature is, there is a premium placed on opening up and expand- ing the meaning of a text, sometimes radically. This exigence encourages rhetors to discover (or construct) and exploit ambiguities because they offer a wide range of possibilities for interpretation. In law, however, or whenever one is dealing with normative texts, the goal is to regulate beliefs and behaviors, and ideally to do so consistently. This goal is difficult to accomplish if the meaning of the text is con- tinually subject to radical revision. In these contexts then, there is more pressure to maintain or agree on the basic sense of the words in a text. Within these con- straints, definitional arguments provide a way to adjust the meaning of a passage, even significantly, without disturbing the common-​ground sense of a text’s words. The regulatory function of normative texts constrains their interpretive flexibility, and the stakes of disputes over normative texts magnify the importance of making fine semantic distinctions. But no matter the sphere of argument, defining a single word represents a powerful rhetorical move for a rhetor. Together, ambiguity and definition represent interpretive issues focused on nail- ing down the sense of the words and phrases on a page. But arguing what the text says at its most basic level is only one layer of interpretation needed to get at what a text means. Notes 1. Those rights not incorporated by this time included the right to bear arms (Second Amendment), the right not to quarter troops in private homes (Third Amendment), the right to a grand jury (Fifth Amendment), and the right to a civil jury trial (Seventh Amendment) (Curtis 203). 2. Namely, the Slaughterhouse Cases (Curtis 175). 3. The choice of Otis McDonald, an elderly, city-​dwelling, African American Democrat, as lead plaintiff was a shrewd rhetorical move on the part of legal counsel given the historical context of the Fourteenth Amendment and the public image of gun rights as a concern of white, rural Republicans (Mastony). 4. These rights represent two of the federal rights that could be applied at the state and local levels as privileges or immunities, according to the definition of these terms set by the Supreme Court in the 1873 Slaughterhouse Cases (Curtis 176). 5. For more on sub-​senses, see Croft and Cruse (116–​140). 6. For more on the similarities and differences between ambiguity and definitional fuzziness, or “vagueness,” see Tuggy.  Def inition 67 7. Categorical definition is thoroughly treated in Edward Schiappa’s book, Defining Reality. Coming from a rhetorical and social constructivist perspective, Schiappa argues that rather than asking the more usual question What is X? when faced with an issue of definition, we should ask, How ought we use the word X in a given context? While he examines several legal cases where tex- tual interpretation figures prominently, he generally sidesteps disputes over terms in legal texts, focusing instead on disputes over broader categorical definitions. In doing so, Schiappa misses a significant locus of definitional disputes, terms in texts, and an important set of examples to support his thesis since debates over terms in texts always turn on a version of his preferred def- initional question: How should we understand the word X in this text? Schiappa’s book thus exem- plifies a widespread neglect of interpretive definition in rhetorical studies. And although he “decided that it was neither necessary nor particularly helpful to limit [his] analysis to the sort of approach stasis theory advocates,” Schiappa’s argument would certainly have been enhanced by the separate attention paid to both categorical and interpretive definitional disputes in the stasis discussions of Cicero and Quintilian (xiii). 8. Aristotle, Topica 1.4–​1.5. 9. These methods of definition represent what modern theorists call necessary and sufficient condi- tions (e.g., Perelman and Olbrechts-​Tyteca 213; Rosch 35). 10. This observation also applies to controversies over ambiguous words and phrases. 11. As Mark Amsler explains, according to classical and early medieval thinkers, “Etymological explanations can be constructed by translating or interpreting the meaning of a loanword or foreign word into the target language (interpretatio), by dividing a word into its components and explaining its origin in terms of the several referents conjoined by the compound name (compositio), by connecting a derived form with a primary form which authorizes the derived word’s meaning (derivatio), and by associating one word with another, on the basis of either sound similarity or a connection between meanings (expositio)” (23). 12. Emphasis in bold mine, emphasis in italics original to West et al. Interpolation of T mine, inter- polation of punctuation mark original to West et al. 13. Stewart reprinted the debate in the appendix to her autobiography, which serves as my source for the exchange. For more information on Stewart’s rhetoric and defense of women’s preach- ing, see Donawerth (87–​94). 14. Including the King James Version, the English Standard Version, the American Standard Version, and the New Revised Standard Version. 15. Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, “About.” 16. Cicero recognized that certain cases in this stasis required multiple words to be defined, although he does not suggest that a hierarchy of words in a text exists (De Inventione 2.18.55). 17. In this quote, Weaver is specifically referring to what he calls god terms, or positive ultimate terms, but this description also applies to ultimate terms more generally. For Burke’s take on ultimate terms, see A Rhetoric of Motives (183–​197). 18. This discussion is informed by Fillmore’s “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding” and “Frame Semantics.” 19. The concept of linchpin terms does not violate the principle of the hermeneutic circle, the idea that readers constantly move between different levels of the text to interpret what it means. Whether readers build up to the meaning of linchpin terms by interpreting lower-​status words or start with the linchpin terms and work their way down to understanding lower-​status words, the linchpin terms maintain a governing status over the meaning of the rest of the words in the passage. 20. The argument for incorporating the Second Amendment through the due process clause came from Paul D. Clement, another lawyer arguing in support of the plaintiffs on behalf of the National Rifle Association.