Kinds of Definition
Kinds of Definition
A lexical definition simply reports the way in which a term is already used within
a language community. The goal here is to inform someone else of the accepted
meaning of the term, so the definition is more or less correct depending upon the
accuracy with which it captures that usage. In these pages, my definitions of technical
terms of logic are lexical because they are intended to inform you about the way in
which these terms are actually employed within the discipline of logic.
A rather large and especially useful portion of our active vocabularies is taken up
by general terms, words or phrases that stand for whole groups of individual things
sharing a common attribute. But there are two distinct ways of thinking about the
meaning of any such term.
The extension of a general term is just the collection of individual things to which
it is correctly applied. Thus, the extension of the word "chair" includes every chair
that is (or ever has been or ever will be) in the world. Theintension of a general term,
on the other hand, is the set of features which are shared by everything to which it
applies. Thus, the intension of the word "chair" is (something like) "a piece of
furniture designed to be sat upon by one person at a time."
Clearly, these two kinds of meaning are closely interrelated. We usually suppose
that the intension of a concept or term determines its extension, that we decide
whether or not each newly-encountered piece of furniture belongs among the chairs
by seeing whether or not it has the relevant features. Thus, as the intension of a
general term increases, by specifying with greater detail those features that a thing
must have in order for it to apply, the term's extension tends to decrease, since fewer
items now qualify for its application.
Suppose we say that to love someone is to be willing to die for that person.
For the purposes of argument, we will define a "student" to be "a person under 18
enrolled in a local school."
Some of these are also precising definitions, a subtype of stipulative definition that
may not contradict but only extend the lexical definition of a term. Theoretical
definitions, used extensively in science and philosophy, are similar in some ways to
stipulative definitions (although theoretical definitions are somewhat normative
-more like persuasive definitions).[2]
Many holders of controversial and highly charged opinions use stipulative definitions
in order to attach the emotional or other connotations of a word to the meaning
they would like to give it; for example, defining "murder" as "the killing of any living
thing for any reason." The other side of such an argument is likely to use a different
stipulative definition for the same term: "the premeditated killing of a human
being." The lexical definition in such a case is likely to fall somewhere in between.
Precising Definitions
These definitions are used to try and decrease the ambiguity of a word. Precising
definitions attempt to clear an expressions vagueness, which means that it isnt
clearly or explicitly stated. Words such as rich and poor are conisdered vague
because they dont really express a clear and definite meaning. However when put
into the right context for example, if we say that the definition of "poor" is anybody
making less than 4,000 dollars a year and is worth less than 20,000 dollars, then
anybody could pinpoint what we mean by being poor in that context. Another
example of precising definitions is by taking the lexical definition of a word, but
using it towards a different discipline such as logic. An example would be the word
formal, which in lexical terms could mean being dressed nicely or meeting the usual
requirements. However in logic, formal means reasoning from known premises or
premises prevoiusly assumed to be true, to the conclusion. Precising definitions
differ from stipulative definitions because stipulative definitions are based solely on
individual will or discretion. While precising definitions are subject to a great deal of
rationality because it must ensure that the definition is correct for the context it is
being used in.