I agree, but I’m putting it more strongly: they can help, but they can also positively hinder. — Jamal
If someone asks for a definition and/or questions how a term is being used then it is on the author to attempt to offer a different line to bring the reader in or for them to judge the worth of bothering to do so — I like sushi
Is “define your terms!” always or often or ever a legitimate imperative? — Jamal
It's not so much the particular wording of a definition that is mandatory for communication, but differentiation between various versions of the idea to be communicated. Presumably, Voltaire placed definition first in the process of communication, because the same word can have many shades of meaning. And the point of philosophical dialog is often to shed light on those shades. :smile:So what do you think? Is “define your terms!” always or often or ever a legitimate imperative? — Jamal
It’s not clear to me whether this situation is the result of a lack of definitions, or an excessive focus on definitions. — Jamal
I understand. This looks like stipulative definition, which I was mostly ignoring, treating it as something separate. — Jamal
Or maybe what you’re referring to is the exception in my main thesis, those times when a term is so ambiguous that you need to prevent confusion with a clear statement that this, not that, is what you mean. — Jamal
Do you think there is a math brain or a type of person to whom math speaks? — Tom Storm
The difference between a definition and a stipulative definition is somewhat collapsible if you stipulate you are referring to X "in its common use" or "according to its dictionary definition" to avoid the impression that your argument rests on a particular interpretation that might be unfamiliar to the reader. And if, to the contrary it does, you stipulate that interpretation. — Baden
Both seem potentially helpful avenues towards discussion. In the process of explanation, is definition any more than a tool to increase clarity and discursive efficiency such that what and when you define need not be based on any general precept but simply what you want to do in the conversation? — Baden
Is that what inferentialism entails? That's a bummer.
You're in danger of forcing me to read Brandom. — Jamal
Maybe it's that you and I have a different approach to philosophy. Now that you've started actively participating in discussions again, it seems to me you focus more specific philosophers and works. In those cases, the context of the discussion can take care of a lot of the potential misunderstandings. I came to philosophy with my own understanding of how the world works, the nature of reality, how discussions should proceed. I also came from a profession where, given an audience which is often non-technical, defining terms was very important. — T Clark
I think I use the writings of philosophers differently than some others on the forum do. I use them to test my understanding. If I find someone whose ideas resonate with mine, they can help me refine and extend my understanding. That's why Collingwood and Lao Tzu are so important to me. I've always disliked Kant, but more recently I've found that some of his ideas are similar to those of Lao Tzu. His somewhat different approach has been interesting. I think maybe the discussions I start, and often those I join, are more free form and are not tied down to specific works and philosophers. I often avoid those more specific discussions because I don't know enough to participate usefully. — T Clark
When used in a certain way this is a fallacy, the fallacy of persuasive definition, a mark of sophistry rather than philosophy. Even when it’s not fallacious, it forecloses on certain of the range of possible results. — Jamal
That’s interesting. I hadn’t even thought to question Kant on that. I suppose then that when he says in the same section that “Mathematical definitions never err,” he’s wrong?
But here’s the full passage:
Mathematical definitions can never err. For since the concept is first given through the definition, it contains exactly just what the definition wants us to think through the concept. But although there cannot occur in the concept anything incorrect in content, sometimes–although only rarely–there may still be a defect in the form (the guise) of the concept, viz., as regards its precision.
— Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B759
I wonder if that covers it. — Jamal
For example in order to know what counts as a definition, one needs to know what counts as a 'count'. And there's no accounting for that, except by making up a story. — unenlightened
In Socrates' defense he was not looking for definitions but accounts, and this for the sake of inquiry.
For example, in Plato's Republic Socrates defines justice as minding your own business. A deeply ironic definition.
We all have some sense of what justice means. What Socrates is asking is that we go further. The problem is not resolved by definition. Whatever definition is proposed we can always ask whether this is what justice is? Does this determine what is and is not just in a particular case? — Fooloso4
Or, you could do like the mathematicians do, and practise what Jamal calls the fallacy of persuasive definition. — Metaphysician Undercover
I do notice that you tend to personalize the issues, as you have done here, and that is indeed very different from my approach. I'm not saying it's bad or uninteresting; it's just very difficult for me to find a way of engaging with it (although I'm doing okay right now). — Jamal
what is right for engineering may be wrong for philosophy. — Jamal
It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet. — Kafka
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men,— that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for always the inmost becomes the outmost—and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. — Emerson - Self Reliance
I think I want to say that the latter is the definition-centric one and the former is more like philosophy, where "planning is guessing". That is, in philosophy and innovation, things have to be kept open to a significant degree; or to put it differently, we have to realize that things just are open. — Jamal
I am wondering, ↪T Clark, what you made of the article ↪Wayfarer linked. — Banno
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