The Little Word “as.” On Making Contexts and Aspects Explicit

The word “as” enables one to make contexts and aspects of things explicit while attributing properties or descriptions to them. For example “John is rational as a mathematician”; “John is irrational as a driver.” This paper examines the idea according to which all propositions containing “as” should be targeted as potential inferences about the subject; as for the examples given—about John. If the inference is valid—the conception in question holds—one can get rid of “as.” I argue against that view by bringing up several contexts in which “as” is not supposed to express an inference. On this basis I come up with a different typology which does justice, I believe, to ordinary as well as philosophical uses of the little word at stake.