problematic
Noun pluralproblematics
Pluralproblematics
- 1Full of difficulties that resist an easy solution or decision.
The committee faced a problematic clause that no one could interpret consistently.
Funding the expansion proved more problematic than the board had anticipated.
Similardifficult, tricky, thorny, troublesome, complicated
Oppositestraightforward, simple, easy, unproblematic
Note
The image underneath is Greek: próblēma meant an outjutting or barrier, something thrown in your way, from probállō, "I throw, place before." In everyday prose the adjective usually follows a verb, as in is problematic, proves problematic, or can be problematic when services are late. It names an obstacle to getting something done. For a doubt about whether something holds, English reaches for the "open to doubt" meaning.
- 2Contributing, especially in subtle ways, to discrimination such as racism, sexism, or homophobia.
Critics called the advertisement problematic for the way it portrayed older workers.
The textbook's framing of immigrants struck many teachers as problematic.
Similaroffensive, objectionable, insensitive, discriminatory, questionable
Note
In sociology the word is a charge about what a portrayal or a phrase does, often quietly: it can reinforce racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or ageism without any open hostility. Because the everyday senses remain common, the surrounding context has to make clear that discrimination is the complaint. Without that context, readers may hear only that something is awkward or hard.
- 3Not settled or certain; of uncertain outcome and open to doubt or debate.
The authorship of the manuscript is still problematic among scholars.
Forecasting the storm's exact path proved problematic for the meteorologists.
Similaruncertain, doubtful, questionable, debatable, unsettled
Oppositecertain, settled, definite, indisputable
Note
Here the trouble is uncertainty rather than obstacle: a problematic analysis or a problematic future is one still open to question. Academic prose also uses the adjective as a complement of make. Mary Romero (1992) writes of a strangeness that "made problematic what had…" been unexamined. In that construction the adjective comes before its object and means turning something settled into a question worth asking.
- 4A problem or difficulty within a particular field of study or inquiry.
The book opens by defining the problematic that frames the entire investigation.
Each chapter addresses a distinct problematic in the philosophy of mind.
Similarproblem, issue, question
Note
Theory turned the adjective into a count noun: a problematic, plural problematics. It means the whole knot of questions and assumptions a field works within, not one isolated difficulty. Matt Wray's Not Quite White (2006) uses it of the "seemingly intractable problematic" of essentialism versus antiessentialism. It belongs to academic writing; elsewhere, problem or question says the same thing more plainly.
Less common meaning
- 5Of a proposition, affirming only the possibility that a predicate holds, rather than its actuality or necessity.
In Kantian logic, a problematic judgment expresses mere possibility, leaving the truth undecided.
He treated the premise as problematic, asserting that the outcome was possible but not assured.
Note
Traditional modal logic gave the word a place in the Kantian classification of judgments. It stands beside the assertoric judgment, which asserts actuality, and the apodictic, which asserts necessity. The usage is dated, so in modern writing it is safest to gloss it on first use. Otherwise readers will hear the "open to doubt" meaning instead of a precise claim about possibility.
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Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Middle French problématique, from Late Latin problematicus, ultimately from Ancient Greek próblēma ("barrier, problem"), which came from probállō ("I throw or place before"), formed from pró ("before") and bállō ("I throw"). By surface analysis it is problem plus -atic.