What is a Sandwich?

My good friend Nick asked me a question recently that, whenever it pops up on the internet, causes quite a lively discussion.

“Is a hot dog a sandwich?” he texted.

“Yes.” I answered without hesitation, because I've already given this quite a bit of thought. A hotdog easily fits into the category of sandwich. It is a protein SANDWICHED between two pieces of bread, often including vegetables and sandwich-type condiments.

“Is cereal soup?” I shot back, thinking the matter settled. But Nick was not to be deterred and refuted my sandwich position with his own well reasoned argument in the vein of Wittgenstein.

“If I were to say I had a sandwich for lunch, and then brought out a hotdog, you would be confused or (rightly) suspect me of being a troll.” In other words, nobody uses the word sandwich to mean hotdog or refers to a hotdog as a sandwich, except in the very specialized case of having this one argument. As a student of Wittgenstein through the teachings of John Powell, I had to admit that his argument from use was a stronger one than my simple argument from definition. This exchange reminded me why I so badly need the philosophies of Wittgenstein and Powell to counteract my natural tendencies.

I am a person who defaults to asking what we really mean when we say X. I seek clarity through categorization and definition, and sometimes find it there. This isn’t the worst flaw a person can have. It isn’t even the worst flaw I have. But for Wittgenstein, it is a source of a great deal of bother that philosophers cause themselves when doing the big work of Philosophy. Wittgenstein saw many philosophical problems as stemming from confusions around what language is, what it does, and how it works. He wrote that a philosopher with a big question is like a fly trapped in a bottle, and that a proper answer ought to let the fly out of the bottle. Sometimes philosophical trouble comes from thinking a sentence is a sensible question, just because it shares the syntax and grammar of other sensible questions. How long is a rope, in general? What time is it on the sun? What is Truth? John Powell wrote an entire essay arguing against the value of using definitions to settle or soothe these kinds of problems. Quickly summarized, the problem with definitions as the basis of an argument is that they are the kind of thing that a person can have an opinion about. Definitions don’t have the power to settle arguments because there are good ones and bad ones and when you run up against a definition the first thing your mind does is decide whether the definition agrees with the way in which you are wanting to use the word. This makes definitions great for clarifying and a great starting place, but really poor for settling an argument. Powell recommended what is called the Worry Method; Get a bottle of wine, a whiteboard, and at least one other friend who is willing to be trapped in the bottle with you. Drink the wine while listing and discussing all the relevant arguments for, against, and around the problem you are wrestling with. Continue to the satisfaction of all involved parties. This method is thorough and deeply engaging; its only flaw is that it will take the rest of your life and it does not produce answers. It can dissolve questions, though, and that is how you get the fly out of the bottle.

Is dissolving questions preferable to answering them? Sometimes. It depends on the context in which the question is asked, what kind of question it is, why you need the answer. Answers are great for straightforward clarifications and concrete information. If you need to know how much 6 red apples would cost at the store down the street from you, an answer is what you want. If you wonder what your coworker meant when they told Tom they wanted to “get to know you better”, an answer is the answer. If you want to know how long a specific piece of rope is, you know you want an answer and you know how to get it and you even know the specific kinds of answers that will work for your needs, whether they need to be expressed in metric or imperial units, etc. The sort of questions that need dissolving are the bigger, badder, more general and ethereal questions.

I use the word dissolving here because when something is dissolved it doesn't go away, it just spreads out into the solution, sometimes changing form and sometimes not. Problems that are dissolved by the worry method do not go away or become unimportant, they become a constant part of your life. This is the important thing about the sandwich discussion, and what I take away from this aspect of Wittgenstein’s thought. It isn’t important, or possible, to definitively answer the sandwich question or other metaphysical/definitional questions regarding the boundaries around concepts. What is important is to ask the questions and have the arguments about possible answers and to use those arguments to more fully engage with and understand ourselves and our world. The question, all of the ways of finding answers to it, and the various answers, become a part of your life in a permanent way that means you have to keep engaging with the uncertainty and the questions you have in every moment. This keeps you awake to the moment you are in and is a vaccination against complacency, certainty, numbness, and the pernicious idea that the world around you is ever the same as it was yesterday. This is how you see the forest and the trees. This is how you know for sure that a hot dog both is, and is not, a sandwich.