Word: questionability
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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PUEBLO: A QUESTION OF INTELLIGENCE (NBC, 7:30-8:30 p.m.). An examination of the Pueblo incident and its implications...
...artful equivocation is an almost impossible concept to explain, but it is easy to demonstrate. Let us take our earlier examination question, "Did the philosophical beliefs of Hume represent age he lived in?" The equivocator would answer it this way: "Some people believe that David Hume was not necessarily a great philosopher, because his thoughts was merely a reflection of conditions around him colored by his own personality. Others, however, strongly support Hume's greatness on the grounds that his personality definitely affected the age in which he lived. It is not a question of the cart before the horse...
Just exactly what our equivocator's answer has to do with the original question is hard to say. The equivocator writes an essay about the point but never on it. Consequently, the grader often mentally assumes the right answer is known by the equivocator and marks his answer as an extension of the point rather that as a complete irrelevance. The artful equivocation must imply the writer knows the right answer, but it must never get definite enough to eliminate any possibilities...
There is a third method of dealing with examination question--that is by use overpowering assumption, an assumption, an assumption so cosmic that it is sometimes accepted. For example, we wrote that it is pretty obvious that the vague generality is the key device in any discussion of examination writing. Why is it so obvious? As a matter of fact, it isn't so obvious, but rather just an arbitrary point from which to start. That is an example of an unwarranted assumption...
...long run the expert in the use of unwarranted assumptions comes off better than the equivator. He would deal with our question on Hume not by baffling the grader or fencing with him, but like this: "It is absurd to discuss whether Hume is representative of the age in which he lived unless we first note the progress of that age on all intellectual fronts. After all, Hume did not live in a vacuum...