Concerning Water’s Wetness

8/3/2023

     Is water wet? This question, since its emergence in 2017, has been the subject of debates by pseudo-intellectuals (like myself) attempting to address an ontological issue and a question of semantics that vastly exceeds their rhetorical and rational capabilities. This question, despite its philosophical facade, can be answered definitively and simply if approached methodically and objectively.

     In order to determine whether a substance does or does not contain the qualities of a particular adjective, one must simply establish the definition of said adjective and determine whether or not the particular object fits that definition. Furthermore, the definition cannot be designed specifically to exclude the substance. To say a ball is any object that is a sphere, except for the Earth, is no clever or reasonable argument for why the Earth is not a ball. The common definition of “wet” is being “covered with or containing liquid, especially water” according to the Oxford Learner's Dictionary. Water both contains and covers water. Water, being a liquid, definitionally cannot be a single water molecule; if it were, then it would not be a liquid and therefore not be water. A water molecule must be contiguous with other water molecules to be considered “water”. Water is, therefore, necessarily covered in water making it objectively wet. 

     Another definition could be employed to attempt to justify the false conclusion that water is not wet. While the previous definition of wetness describes an objective property, one could opt to use a subjective definition of wetness in order to avoid the undeniable conclusion that water is wet. A subjective definition would center around an individual's perception rather than an objective state. Wetness could describe the particular sensation that one experiences while in contact with a wet object or substance. An object or substance that was wet would be one from which the sensation of wetness originates. Because when one touches water, this “wetness” experience is perceived, water is subjectively wet.

     The final argument that could be, and most commonly is, used to defend the absurd notion that water is not wet is that wetness is the interaction between liquid and the surface of a solid object. Water is not a solid object with a defined surface between one body and another, therefore, it is not wet by this definition. This definition, however, is obviously invalid and not only because it is never once used outside of the context of the wetness of water debate. In attempting to be as narrow as necessary to eliminate describing water, it also eliminates many instances of objects that would be universally considered wet. With this definition, one would conclude that a wet towel, sponge, or paper is not wet because the liquid is not interacting with the object on the surface but rather within the object. The concept of “wet on the inside” with food, or any other substance, would be an impossibility. 

     Whether one defines wetness objectively or subjectively, granted that he uses a legitimate, unbiased definition, the logical conclusion is always that water is wet. There is more than one way to skin a cat, but each way results in a dead cat.