I can use the same idea, while still believing it within myself to be true of my character, and alter the sentence thus: "A minimum of two people involved in a discussion should at least agree on the definition of certain words before heading too far into a conversation, of maybe a particular matter", or, "A minimum of two people involved in a discussion should at least agree on the definition of certain words before heading too far into the discussion."

Does this change anything with regard to your response? — Dalai Dahmer

Yes, as these two are formulated, the discussion doesn't seem to change into a debate. To me there is a great difference between the two, Discussion means people are talking to each other, debate means people don't talk to each other but rather to their shared audience in order to get the more of the audience on their hands.
Logical fallacies are very common in debates (see election debates for this if you don't believe me) but have no place in discussions. resulting in that discussions are about truth finding, where debates are about popularity. I hate logica fallacies being made in debates in order to become more popular to a crowd. And the worst thing is, many in the crowd accept such arguments as a valid logical argument while they are obviously fallacious. Resulting in those people having more problems participating in actual discussions.

My entire comment referred to abstract terms. "dog" is not an abstract term. Can you point to 'value' or 'meaning'? — Pseudonym

"Dog" is abstract. I doubt you and I were thinking of the same kind of dog when I used the term. "Dog" is a term used to refer to ALL breeds of dog, not necessarily a specific one.

If you want me to point to "value" and "meaning", I can do that as well, for any word to mean anything useful it must refer to something in the world.

"Meaning" is the same thing as information and I defined information as the relationship between cause and effect. So when using the term, "meaning", you are referring to some causal relationship. The words on this screen mean what the authors intended when they wrote them. The meaning of seeing words on the screen (the effect) is some author's intent (the cause).

"Value" is how organisms behave in ways that show that something is important to them. Creating passwords, backing up digital pictures, saving money, are all behaviors that can be referred to when using the term, "value". It is what we mean when we say that someone values something. "Value" in this sense is a verb. It can also be a noun. The fact that we refer to words as, nouns, verbs and adjectives indicates that words refer to places, people and things, actions, and descriptors of nouns - meaning that all words refer to non-verbal experiences.

...for any word to mean anything useful it must refer to something in the world.

[As a brand-new member here, please forgive me if I'm trampling on customs I'm not yet aware of. Thanks.]

When you refer to "the world", do you mean to include human socio-cultural stuff, or do you refer to the physical space-time world that science describes so ably?

I ask because "meaning"*, the term that lead to the words I quoted above, is an ill-defined, human-created concept that all humans understand, but few (myself included!) can define in precise and unambiguous English. It has no existence outside of human socio-culture, which is why I ask what you mean to refer to...?

Edited to add:

* - Here, I refer to meaning in the sense of 'the meaning of life', not the more literal 'the meaning of a word can be found in a dictionary'.

"Dog" is abstract. — Harry Hindu

I was using the term abstract in its philosophical sense with regards to language. This is, afterall, a philosophy forum and this is a thread about language, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/ gives a good account, or a more accessible definition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_and_concrete

You see the problem? We can't even agree what abstract means.

for any word to mean anything useful it must refer to something in the world. — Harry Hindu

And what does "useful" mean?

"Meaning" is the same thing as information and I defined information as the relationship between cause and effect. So when using the term, "meaning", you are referring to some causal relationship. — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure your definition tells us anything here. If meaning is the same thing as information, then what does Macbeth 'mean' when he says
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

Surely "shadow" in that verse means more than just the absence of light cast by an object. I don't see the cause and effect capturing the meaning there.

The words on this screen mean what the authors intended when they wrote them. — Harry Hindu

But this can't be the case otherwise mistakes in language would not be possible. If I write the word "Dog" but by it mean to refer to the King of France, 'dog' does not now mean the King of France, I've clearly made a mistake. Or, if everything does mean what the authors intend, then how are we to ever determine the meaning of any words at all?

Value" is how organisms behave in ways that show that something is important to them. — Harry Hindu

You've just replaced value with important. What does important mean in this context?

I have no doubt that we could come up with synonyms all day, but at no point does claiming one word is equivalent to some others actually dictate what the word means.

We engage in this activity because we're trying to assert power — Pseudonym

1. Cooperation is baked into language -- that much you should have learned from Wittgenstein. Vervet monkeys don't do their "predator" calls if there's no monkey near enough to hear them.

2. Thus if you want a purely competitive encounter with another human being, words are not the best tool for the job. You cite evidence of people straining against that limitation. That's interesting. Truly. It's a question how far you can get and what techniques you'll use to impose your will on others by imposing your will on words. As you say, that's rhetoric. But Humpty-Dumpty always falls.

3. From competitive use of language comes argument; from argument comes logic. Logic gives us both new ways to compete and new ways to cooperate, and it cannot do otherwise.

4. That's how philosophy becomes the incubator of science. Compete how you will and you are still also cooperating. (As you acknowledge -- you can gain something from my attempts to master you.) The war of all against all is, here, in this context, only a myth.

((Pardon the style -- in a weird mood today.))

1. Cooperation is baked into language -- that much you should have learned from Wittgenstein. Vervet monkeys don't do their "predator" calls if there's no monkey near enough to hear them. — Srap Tasmaner

Absolutely. I too was in a weird mood, particularly misanthropic, too many encounters of clashing egos, rather than clashing ideas at the moment. Still, it's good to vent every now and then! Language evolves as a cooperative game and that's how it should be played. What we do with it these days though often falls short of that ideal, even if not quite so ubiquitously as my prior mood may have painted it. As an excersice I've tried, try applying Grice's maxims to any of the threads on this forum, particularly once you get a bit of disagreement. Hardly any meet all four, most fail every single one.

2. Thus if you want a purely competitive encounter with another human being, words are not the best tool for the job. You cite evidence of people straining against that limitation. That's interesting. Truly. It's a question how far you can get and what techniques you'll use to impose your will on others by imposing your will on words. As you say, that's rhetoric. But Humpty-Dumpty always falls. — Srap Tasmaner

I'm with you up to the last bit, Humpty-Dumpty admitted that his words have their meanings peculiar to him. Rhetoric requires that one pretend the words are expressed semantically whilst knowing they are not.

3. From competitive use of language comes argument; from argument comes logic. Logic gives us both new ways to compete and new ways to cooperate, and it cannot do otherwise. — Srap Tasmaner

Interesting link, I've not thought about that connection. Have you read any Frank Ramsey? He might well say it's the other way round.

4. That's how philosophy becomes the incubator of science. Compete how you will and you are still also cooperating. (As you acknowledge -- you can gain something from my attempts to master you.) The war of all against all is, here, in this context, only a myth. — Srap Tasmaner

Hmm, not sure about this one. I can see where you might be going, but you might have to join the dots for me. Is that the only way do you think, or just something that emerges from such confrontations sometimes?

Have you read any Frank Ramsey? He might well say it's the other way round. — Pseudonym

"Truth and Probability" changed my life, but I'm no Ramsey scholar. What did you have in mind? What should I reread?

you might have to join the dots — Pseudonym

Here's the idea: science is part of philosophy in just the way I was talking about earlier, as an ideal to strive toward and as a tool we actually use. As a goal and a norm. (One of the many excellencies of Lewis's game theory scaffolding is that it clarifies how there can be a norm that is in some sense external to you, something you are beholden to, but at the same time you're responsible for it, helped make it.) There's a natural, even evolutionary process here of local competition enabling global cooperation. That's a bit of a fairy tale, sure, but that fairy tale is part of the system, as norm and goal.

((Going to bring this "speaking freely" to end soon.))

I feel as though philosophy is rife with stipulative definitions. So, one is bound to find themselves struggling to reach some agreement in understanding with trying to present a stipulative definition, when words are circular in how they attain meaning. I suppose the only solution is to be clear and precise in which instances do the stipulative definitions derive their meaning from. However, given the nature of philosophy, that's a difficult task to accomplish.

The below seems pertinent to the issue also:

Fallacies of definition.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel with every thread.

"Truth and Probability" changed my life, but I'm no Ramsey scholar. What did you have in mind? What should I reread? — Srap Tasmaner

Ramsey is probably the closest thing to a favourite philosopher that I have. In the short years of his life he produced better answers to a huge number of philosophical questions that most philosopher manage given three times the life-span. I'm amazed to find another enthusiast, I've never found him to be that popular. Anyway, I'm thinking particularly in this instance on his paper 'Theories' (from 1929, posthumously published in 1931) It's in Philosophical Papers, D. H. Mellor (ed.), 1990. Particulaly apt here is the quote "The adherents of two such theories [theories with different terms] could quite well dispute, although neither affirmed anything the other denied". One of my favourite quotes.
I'm also slightly referring to his address the apostles 'On there being no discussable subject' and in 'Facts and Propositions' - "there is no separate problem of truth but a problem about judgment".

Ramsey was very much heading the direction of unifying axiology with logic, not to derogate the latter, nor by raising the former to objectivity, but by meeting in the middle.

There's a natural, even evolutionary process here of local competition enabling global cooperation. That's a bit of a fairy tale, sure, but that fairy tale is part of the system, as norm and goal. — Srap Tasmaner

Nothing wrong with fairy tales. Here's Richard Braithwaite describing Ramsey Sentences

it would be rather like a fairy story starting 'Once upon a time there was a man who ...' or 'Once upon a time there was a frog which ...', the rest of the story going on to describe the adventures of the man or the adventures of the frog. A treatise on electrons, in Ramsey's view, starts by saying 'There are things which we will call electrons which ...', and then goes on with the story about the electrons ... only of course you then believe the whole thing, the whole 'There is ...' sentence, whereas in a fairy story of course you don't.

I was using the term abstract in its philosophical sense with regards to language. This is, afterall, a philosophy forum and this is a thread about language, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/abstract-objects/ gives a good account, or a more accessible definition https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstract_and_concrete

You see the problem? We can't even agree what abstract means. — Pseudonym

From your own link:

The abstract/concrete distinction has a curious status in contemporary philosophy. It is widely agreed that the distinction is of fundamental importance. And yet there is no standard account of how it should be drawn. There is a great deal of agreement about how to classify certain paradigm cases. Thus it is universally acknowledged that numbers and the other objects of pure mathematics are abstract (if they exist), whereas rocks and trees and human beings are concrete. Some clear cases of abstracta are classes, propositions, concepts, the letter ‘A’, and Dante’s Inferno. Some clear cases of concreta are stars, protons, electromagnetic fields, the chalk tokens of the letter ‘A’ written on a certain blackboard, and James Joyce’s copy of Dante’s Inferno. — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Did I not explain that I used the term, "dog" as a class for all types of dogs?

I see the problem. You are lazy in your research and want to argue for the sake of arguing.

And what does "useful" mean? — Pseudonym

"Useful" refers to the relationship between a tool and some goal. Knowledge is a tool as much as a screwdriver. There are certain screwdrivers that are useful for certain tasks as well as certain knowledge that is useful for certain goals.

I'm not sure your definition tells us anything here. If meaning is the same thing as information, then what does Macbeth 'mean' when he says
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

Surely "shadow" in that verse means more than just the absence of light cast by an object. I don't see the cause and effect capturing the meaning there. — Pseudonym

Macbeth is a fictional character. Shakespeare's Macbeth bears little resemblance to the real 11th century Scottish king. "Macbeth" means what the author intended. Ambiguous language use one of the story-teller's favorite tools. The artist may have simply intended for their work to be open to subjective interpretation (which is basically the definition of art).

Shakespeare could have intended (meant) something specific when he wrote that, but did he leave any indication of what that was? If not, then (like the Bible) it is open to interpretation by others, which basically means that people will relate what they think Shakespeare intended with their own experiences. This is what we try to do when we try to understand what something means. We try to get at the cause, or the intent, and if we can't then we come up with our own explanation based upon our own experiences.

But this can't be the case otherwise mistakes in language would not be possible. If I write the word "Dog" but by it mean to refer to the King of France, 'dog' does not now mean the King of France, I've clearly made a mistake. Or, if everything does mean what the authors intend, then how are we to ever determine the meaning of any words at all? — Pseudonym

So artists are making mistakes with language? I thought that they were being "artful". Is that not what you would be doing in your language use? Sure, "dog" typically refers to an kind of animal, but it also refers to most men, if you ask any woman. Words can mean whatever we want them to mean. If we intend to get our message across, then we try to use words that we believe the listener understands.

You've just replaced value with important. What does important mean in this context?

I have no doubt that we could come up with synonyms all day, but at no point does claiming one word is equivalent to some others actually dictate what the word means. — Pseudonym

How else are we suppose to communicate the sensations and experiences (that are made up of visual, audio, gustatory, olfactory and tactile representations) that aren't words? How else do you communicate the actual color red, a sour taste, the feeling of anxiety, etc. that you experience? The color red isn't a word. "Red" refers to that color experience you have and you use that string of symbols to refer to that experience for the purpose of communicating it. I could draw examples of these terms, but that would be time-consuming.

Did I not explain that I used the term, "dog" as a class for all types of dogs? — Harry Hindu

You said - "How did you learn what the word, "dog" means, if not establishing a connection between the string of symbols, "dog" and the image of a dog? I could show you the word, "dog", or a picture of a dog, and I would end up getting my message across all the same.". You were referring to the thing "dog", that's what you could show me a picture of. You could not show me a picture of the class 'dogs'.

If you want to just be insulting, I've no interest in discussing with you. You used the word 'dog', a concrete term (like 'human being, in the very definition you're citing). If in fact you meant 'dogs' the class, then that's fine, just say so and we can move on. There's no need to start alleging laziness and belligerence just because I took you to mean one thing when you meant another.

"Useful" refers to the relationship between a tool and some goal. Knowledge is a tool as much as a screwdriver. — Harry Hindu

You said "for any word to mean anything useful it must refer to something in the world.". I was asking what 'useful' meant in that context. So, by substitution - "for any word to mean anything (like the relationship between a tool and some goal) it must refer to something in the world" . Is this what you're claiming is necessary for a word to mean anything?

Shakespeare could have intended (meant) something specific when he wrote that, but did he leave any indication of what that was? If not, then (like the Bible) it is open to interpretation by others, which basically means that people will relate what they think Shakespeare intended with their own experiences. — Harry Hindu

I have no issue with this except that you'd said meaning was equated with information, which cannot be the case if the reader is imbuing the word with experience [information] that they already have? Surely the word must then be doing something other than imparting information in this case?

Words can mean whatever we want them to mean. — Harry Hindu

Exactly, but you'd said "It ultimately comes down to every word refers to some other visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, etc. sensation." I'm having trouble marrying the two concepts. Surely the word either refers one-to-one to some 'thing' in the world, or it means whatever we want it to. I don't see how it can do both.

How else do you communicate the actual color red, a sour taste, the feeling of anxiety, etc. that you experience? — Harry Hindu

You can't.

Let me first say that I like that you made this thread. Here's how I think about it:

On issues where the philosophical disputes are sharp, it can certainly help to provide definitions, if for no other reason than to get people to think critically about what ideas they actually hold. A good example of what I'm talking about is the hard problem of consciousness. Everyone and their mother has an "intuition" about what consciousness is, but when people are pressed to define what they mean by consciousness, they recoil into their dungeons and familiar lairs. Another example is with the very concept of philosophy. A lot of people criticize or ignore philosophy because they believe it's a useless endeavor. They rarely think critically about what they actually mean when they talk about philosophy. I define philosophy as a general method of analyzing the nature of the world through logical arguments and empirical observations. I know others might disagree with that definition and that doesn't bother me. At least I have a fairly concrete sense for what I mean when I say philosophy. I think I do philosophy every moment of my life when I am required to think hard about something: whenever I play chess or write a piece of code or critique something I just read.

I think you can still do good philosophy without providing a definition for literally everything, but when controversial terms and issues come up, then yes everyone could benefit from trying to clarify their thoughts by coming up with definitions. Then you can begin to demarcate your particular problem from other issues in the world, and maybe stand a chance of providing a satisfactory solution.

Rather than argue over the meaning of "animal", we can just argue over whether animals have rights -- just to use your example you opened with. And we can clarify exactly what we mean by said terms as we go along, just as we would have to even when setting out our terms from the start. — Moliere

My point is that you can't argue sensibly over wether animals have rights, as long as it's not clear what the word animals refers to. In said example I wasn't arguing over the meaning of the word 'animal', I was asking what the OP meant by it, and even after 30 pages of comments he still hasn't answered me.

In a sense it doesn't matter what the definition of a word is as long as it is understood. The only point in providing or asking for meaning is to clarify usage, and once that is understood then the other possible uses a word can be put to are not relevant. — Moliere

Agree, but if I don't know what the speakers definition is, and I ask for it, he/she should provide it, rather than talk over it. I merely argued that the way he used the word 'animal' was indicative enoug for me to conclude that he was applieng a different definition on the word, than the definition I'm familiar with, hence I asked for his definition, wich to my frustration he/she refuses to provide. Wich is why i started this thread, since that wasn't the only occasion where someone refused to provide a definition for a word he/she used in a statement when I asked for one since I didn't know what definition was intended.

I think you can still do good philosophy without providing a definition for literally everything, but when controversial terms and issues come up, then yes everyone could benefit from trying to clarify their thoughts by coming up with definitions. — Uber

So should it be compulsory for an OP to provide his/her definition of a word used in his/her opening statements when requested? And if so, would it be benificial to add such a rule to the site guidelines?

You said - "How did you learn what the word, "dog" means, if not establishing a connection between the string of symbols, "dog" and the image of a dog? I could show you the word, "dog", or a picture of a dog, and I would end up getting my message across all the same.". You were referring to the thing "dog", that's what you could show me a picture of. You could not show me a picture of the class 'dogs'. — Pseudonym

Exactly, the image of a dog that crops up in your mind is not a dog. It is your class for "dog". Dogs live out in the world as animals, not in your mind as images. The dog class exists only in minds, not out in the world. There's a clear distinction if you just think a little.

A picture of a dog is a concrete thing with an abstract meaning. The dog is abstract, the picture is concrete. Do you see the difference? The dog isn't a real dog, nor a representation of a real dog if I so intended. In that case it would be similar to the dog class. If I drew a picture of my pet dog, then that would be a concrete image, just as your experience of my pet dog would be if you were there to meet him, as opposed to your image of him before seeing a picture or meeting him.

You said "for any word to mean anything useful it must refer to something in the world.". I was asking what 'useful' meant in that context. So, by substitution - "for any word to mean anything (like the relationship between a tool and some goal) it must refer to something in the world" . Is this what you're claiming is necessary for a word to mean anything? — Pseudonym

Okay, I would rephrase my first sentence into, "to be useful, a word must refer to something in the world." What "useful" means in that context is the relationship between the word (the tool) and the intent to communicate non-verbal experiences (the goal).

I have no issue with this except that you'd said meaning was equated with information, which cannot be the case if the reader is imbuing the word with experience [information] that they already have? Surely the word must then be doing something other than imparting information in this case? — Pseudonym

I don't understand what you're saying here.

A writer or speaker has the intent to communicate their non-verbal experiences to others. The only way to do that would be to put it in a format that others can experience themselves - the written and spoken word. When a writer writes a word, or speaker speaks a word (the cause), the receivers experience seeing a visual scribble or hearing a sound (the effect). Their experience enables them to interpret those particular scribbles or sounds as references to other non-verbal things, events and processes, either imaginary or real (the context is usually implied in the words used, except when lying). What we try to do in interpreting anything we see or hear (effect) is we try to get at the cause, and in the case of word use, we try to get at the intent of the user of the words.

Exactly, but you'd said "It ultimately comes down to every word refers to some other visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, etc. sensation." I'm having trouble marrying the two concepts. Surely the word either refers one-to-one to some 'thing' in the world, or it means whatever we want it to. I don't see how it can do both. — Pseudonym

What I meant was that words can mean whatever we want them to mean, but if you want them to mean something useful, then they need to refer to non-verbal experiences and your intent to communicate a particular non-verbal experience. In the case of lying, your intent is to mislead others. In this case, you know how others will interpret the words you will use. Your intent is to create a mental image of what isn't the case, but in order to do that you have to have a mental image of what is the case. You then use words to help create that false image. In this sense your words refer to your intent to mislead. Words refer to the intent as well as their commonly used referent in that particular context. There are typically more than one cause to any effect. Effects carry information about all of their causes. Meaning is the relationship between some effect and it's subsequent causes.

I think sometimes it's useful and other times leads one off topic, because then you get into arguments about the "correct" definition instead of just going along with the OP's meaning for the sake of the argument.

Fwiw, the principle of philosophical charity also says that you should interpret words in such a way that they make the most sense for the argument you are adressing. That's been a guideline for a long time precisely to avoid people either derailing the argument into long talks about the proper definition, or claim that the whole argument is invalid on the basis of what amounts to semantics.

But I've noticed on here that people are unwilling to even go along with stipulated definitions by the OP. There was a recent thread that wanted to say for the sake of argument that abortion is immoral, and commenters refused to stick to that.

Meaning is the relationship between some effect and it's subsequent causes. — Harry Hindu

Isn't that a very particular definition of "meaning"? One which violates the Principle of Least Surprise, I would say? :chin: Merriam-Webster says this (but I'm not sure it's very helpful):

Definition of meaning
1 a : the thing one intends to convey especially by language : purport
Do not mistake my meaning.

b : the thing that is conveyed especially by language : import
Many words have more than one meaning.

2 : something meant or intended : aim
a mischievous meaning was apparent

3 : significant quality; especially : implication of a hidden or special significance
a glance full of meaning

4 a : the logical connotation of a word or phrase
b : the logical denotation or extension of a word or phrase

And now that I think about it: what is the relationship between an effect and its cause(s)? It seems little more than that the effect is related to the cause that caused it, which hardly seems worth saying. Saying that the cause is related to the effects it has is similarly uninformative.

"to be useful, a word must refer to something in the world." — Harry Hindu

Where "world" refers to the physical spacetime universe plus the ill-defined and sprawling mass of human culture, in all its wonder, and all its guises? For the latter is where 99% of humans live out 99% of their lives. And some words, those that are often applied and used to describe human culture, or some smaller part of it, are equally ill-defined. I think "meaning" --- in the sense of 'the meaning of life', not 'Many words have more than one meaning' --- is one of these. Human concepts like wisdom, value, and quality are similar in this regard. We all know what they mean, but writing it down in words is next-to-impossible. :brow:

But you seemed to have understood what I meant with them in this thread clearly enoug. — Tomseltje

Odd, then, if these ideas are understood, that one should think definitions necessary.

There is a logical conundrum in the idea that the meaning of a word is given by other words - by its definition. Words form a self-referential sphere.

So how could we learn the meaning of words, if that meaning is given by more words? How do we break into the sphere of language?

The answer is of course that there is a way of understanding what words mean that is not given by more words, but found in the way words are used.

Any philosophical analysis that commences with giving definitions can be dismissed by dismissing those definitions.

Hence the need to understand what we are doing with words.

Don't look to meaning, look to use.

because then you get into arguments about the "correct" definition instead of just going along with the OP's meaning for the sake of the argument. — NKBJ

If that happens it's just silly. The OP is the only one who can provide the correct definition of the words used in his/her opening statement. There is no reasonable disagreeing about that. Wich doesn't mean that its unreasonable to respond by mentioning an alternative word to use for given definition. In general, the definition should be given by the one introducing the word. Even in dictionaries we have lots of words that each have several different meanings, in a statement, not all meanings may apply, wich apply and wich don't is determined by the one making the statement. And it's even possible the person making the statement applies a definition that's not even in the dictionary. In wich case it usually is even more important to provide the definition of the word used, especially when requested by participants in the discussion.

Odd, then, if these ideas are understood, that one should think definitions necessary.

There is a logical conundrum in the idea that the meaning of a word is given by other words - by its definition. Words form a self-referential sphere.

So how could we learn the meaning of words, if that meaning is given by more words? How do we break into the sphere of language?

The answer is of course that there is a way of understanding what words mean that is not given by more words, but found in the way words are used.

Any philosophical analysis that commences with giving definitions can be dismissed by dismissing those definitions.

Hence the need to understand what we are doing with words.

Don't look to meaning, look to use. — Banno

The ones familiar enough with the meaning of the words used and their relation can understand without further defining, the ones who are not familiar enough don't. In wich case one can become familiar, definitions can help with that.

Though of course the conundrum still exists when there are not enough references in common among the participants of the discussion to explain.

Learning the meaning of words, by providing more words, is merely the result of the assumption that the meaning of the other words is known better. If it is, it can work, if it's not it's futile.

Sure one answer is that we familiarize with words by observing how they are used. However, that's not very helpfull if a word gets used in a way that is new to the observer, especially when it's not even clear that it is used in a different way.

You can't reasonably dismiss definitions given with a statement/philosophical analysis. It's like dismissing the legend given with a map. If you dismiss the legend the map becomes useless. If you dismiss the given definitions, the statement becomes meaningless. If the maker of the statement was sloppy in his/her definitions, one could help improve them though.

You can't separate the meaning of words from the use of words, Words used have a meaning. If you change the use, you might change the meaning. If you change the meaning, you change the use. Better look at both.

There's a series of misunderstandings in your post. I'll pick one for you to consider.

You can't separate the meaning of words from the use of words, Words used have a meaning. If you change the use, you might change the meaning. If you change the meaning, you change the use. Better look at both. — Tomseltje

If this is the case, what sort of thing is the "meaning"? Is it the definition? Is it a thing-in-the-head of the speaker? What is the meaning, apart from the use?

The meaning of meaning.

Before anyone uses the word 'meaning', they should have to read and at least summarise the above and stipulate which of the 16 or so philosophical meanings of meaning they mean.

Or possibly we can manage without such stipulations.

Before anyone uses the word 'meaning', they should have to read and at least summarise the above and stipulate which of the 16 or so philosophical meanings of meaning they mean.

Or possibly we can manage without such stipulations — unenlightened

:lol:

The meaning of meaning. — unenlightened

There came a point in my present studies where I genuinely needed to take out of the library the 1923 book of this title by Ogden and Richards. I felt I'd arrived in Philosophy proper. Of course, I actually wanted the appendix by Malinowski about language, but there you go :)

I actually read it, and I want my revenge on the world! I think it serves as an awful warning of the excesses of analysis. All that work, and then Wittgenstein blows the whole thing apart.

But Malinowski still makes a lot of sense :)

If this is the case, what sort of thing is the "meaning"? Is it the definition? Is it a thing-in-the-head of the speaker? What is the meaning, apart from the use? — Banno

The meaning can be represented by a definition. The meaning is what the speaker/writer of the words intended to communicate. In other words, that what the speaker/writer meant with it.

The meaning can be represented by a definition. — Tomseltje

OK; then the meaning is not given by the definition.

So, going back to the OP, there is a point in discussing more than the definition when doing philosophy.

No?