Meaning and Definitions

LANGUAGE
Varieties of Meaning

 Ordinary language serves various functions in our day-to-day lives . For our purpose, two linguistic
functions are particularly important: (1) to convey information and (2) to express or evoke feelings.
# Consider, for example, the following statements:
The death penalty, which is legal in thirty-six states, has been carried out most often
in Georgia; however, since 1977 Texas holds the record for the greatest number of
executions.

# The death penalty is a cruel and inhuman form of punishment in which hapless prisoners
are dragged from their cells and summarily slaughtered only to satiate the bloodlust of
a vengeful public .
 Terminology that conveys information is said to have cognitive meaning, and terminology that
expresses or evokes feelings is said to have emotive meaning.

The emotively charged statement about the death penalty illustrates two important
points. The first is that statements of this sort usually have both cognitive meaning and
emotive meaning.
Varieties of Meaning

 The second point is that part of the cognitive meaning of such statements is a value claim. A
value claim is a claim that something is good, bad, right, wrong, or better, worse, more
important or less important than some other thing .
 For the purposes of logic, it is important that we be able to disengage the value claims of
emotively charged statements from the emotive meaning and treat these claims as separate
statements.
 Value claims as such normally require evidence to support them. For example, the claim that
the death penalty is immoral cannot simply stand by itself. It cries out for reasons to support it.
 But when value claims are couched in emotive terminology, the emotive “clothing” tends to
obscure the fact that a value claim is being made, and it simultaneously gives psychological
momentum to that claim.
 As a result, readers and listeners are inclined to swallow the value claim whole without any
evidence. Furthermore, the intellectual laziness of many speakers and writers, combined
with their inability to supply supporting reasons for their value claims, reinforces the
desirability of couching such claims in emotive terminology .
Varieties of Meaning

 Let us now consider emotive terminology as it occurs in arguments. In arguments,

emotive terminology accomplishes basically the same function as emotive
terminology
in statements.
 It allows the arguer to make value claims about the subject matter of the
argument without providing evidence, and it gives the argument a kind of steamroller
quality by which it tends to crush potential counterarguments before the reader or
listener has a chance to think of them.
 This steamroller quality also tends to paralyze the logical thought processes of
readers or listeners so that they are not able to see illogical arguments in their true
light.
 These effects of emotive terminology can be avoided if the reader or listener will
disengage the value claims and other cognitive meanings from the emotive meaning
of the language and reexpress them as distinct premises
Vagueness and Ambiguity

 Now that we have distinguished emotive meaning from cognitive meaning, let us
explore some of the ways that cognitive meanings can be defective. Two of them are
vagueness and ambiguity.
 A linguistic expression is said to be vague if there are borderline cases in which it is
impossible to tell if the expression applies or does not apply. Vague expressions often
allow for a continuous range of interpretations. The meaning is hazy, obscure, and
imprecise.
 For example, words such as “love,” “happiness,” “peace,” “excessive,” “fresh,” “rich,”
“poor,” “normal,” “conservative,” and “polluted” are vague. We can rarely tell with any
precision whether they apply to a given situation or not .
Vagueness and Ambiguity

 The other way in which cognitive meanings can be defective is ambiguity. An expression
is said to be ambiguous when it can be interpreted as having more than one clearly
distinct meaning in a given context.
 For example, words such as “light,”“proper,” “critical,” “stress,” “mad,” “inflate,” “chest,”
“bank,” “sound,” and “race” can be used ambiguously.
 The difference between ambiguity and vagueness is that vague terminology allows for
a relatively continuous range of interpretations, whereas ambiguous terminology allows
for multiple discrete interpretations. In a vague expression there is a blur of meaning,
whereas in an ambiguous expression there is a mix-up of otherwise clear meanings.

 Ambiguity and vagueness are important in logic because there are countless occasions
in which the evaluation of an argument leads to the observation, “Well, that depends on
what you mean by . . .” Certain phraseology in the argument is vague or ambiguous, and
its meaning must be clarified before any evaluation can proceed .

 The role of vagueness and ambiguity in arguments may be conveniently explored in
the context of conflicting arguments between individuals. Such conflicts are called
disputes:

≠ CLAUDIA: Mrs.Wilson abuses her children. And how do I know that? I saw her spank one
of her kids the other day after the kid misbehaved.
JANE: Don’t be silly. Kids need discipline, and by disciplining her children, Mrs.Wilson is
showing that she loves them.
≠ BRENDA: I’m afraid that Smiley is guilty of arson. Last night he confided to me that he
was the one who set fire to the old schoolhouse.
WARREN: No, you couldn’t be more mistaken. In this country no one is guilty until proven
so in a court of law, and Smiley has not yet even been accused of anything
 Disputes that arise over the meaning of language are called verbal disputes. But not
all disputes are of this sort. Some disputes arise over a disagreement about facts, and
these are called factual disputes. Example:

≠ KEITH: I know that Freddie stole a computer from the old schoolhouse. Barbara told me
that she saw Freddie do it.
PHYLLIS: That’s ridiculous! Freddie has never stolen anything in his life. Barbara hates
Freddie, and she is trying to pin the theft on him only to shield her criminal boyfriend
The Intention and Extension of terms

 The main task of logic is the evaluation of arguments. However, as we saw in the previous section,
there are countless arguments in which this task leads to the observation, “Well, that depends on
what you mean by . . .” Such an observation usually indicates that the meaning of certain words in
the argument is vague or ambiguous.

 Clearing up the problem often involves supplying a definition. Thus, the study of
meaning and definition is closely related to the main task of logic. In this section we
continue our inquiry into aspects of linguistic meaning, and the results of this inquiry
provide the basis for the theory of definition in the next section.

 The basic units of any ordinary language are words. Our main concern in this chapter, however, is
not with words in general but with terms. A term is any word or
arrangement of words that may serve as the subject of a statement .
 The previous section of this chapter explored the cognitive meaning of language in
general. The cognitive meaning of terms comprises two kinds: intensional and extensional. The
intensional meaning consists of the qualities or attributes that the term
connotes, and the extensional meaning consists of the members of the class that the
term denotes
The Intention and Extension of terms

 The intensional meaning of a term is otherwise known as the intension, or

connotation, and the extensional meaning is known as the extension, or denotation.
“Intension” and “extension” are roughly equivalent to the more modern terms “sense”
and “reference,” respectively.
 “Inventor “connotes Clever Intuitive Creative Imaginative .
 “Inventor denotes Thomas Edison Alexander Graham Bell Samuel F. B. Morse Wright
brothers .
The Intention and Extension of terms

 Exactly how a term connotes a set of attributes allows for at least two different
interpretations. Some philosophers take an objective approach and hold that a term
connotes whatever attributes something must have in order to be denoted by the term.
Others take what might be called a subjective approach and hold that a term connotes
the attributes that occur in the minds of the people who use that term.

 In connection with this approach, however, we encounter the problem of terms

connoting different things to different people. Thus, to a cat lover the term “cat” might
connote the attributes of being cuddly and adorable, while to someone who hates cats
it might connote the attributes of being obnoxious and disgusting.
 To avoid this problem, we restrict the meaning of connotation to what is usually called
the conventional connotation. The conventional connotation of a term includes the
attributes that the term commonly calls forth in the minds of competent speakers of the
language.
The Intention and Extension of terms

 The denotation of a term also typically remains the same from person to person,
but it may change with the passage of time. The denotation of “currently living cat,”
for example, is constantly fluctuating as some cats die and others are born. The denotation
of the term “cat,” on the other hand, is presumably constant because it denotes
all cats, past, present, and future

 Sometimes the denotation of a term can change radically with the passage of time.
The terms “currently living dodo bird” and “current king of France,” for example, at
one time denoted actually existing entities, but today all such entities have perished.
Accordingly, these terms now have what is called empty extension. They are said to
denote the empty (or “null”) class, the class that has no members.
 The fact that some terms have empty extension leads us to an important connection
between extension and intension—namely, that intension determines extension.
The intensional meaning of a term serves as the criterion for deciding what the extension
consists of. the intension of the word “cat” serves as the criterion for determining what
is and what is not a member of the class of cats
The Intention and Extension of terms

 The distinction between intension and extension may be further illustrated by comparing
the way in which these concepts can be used to give order to random sequences
of terms .
 A series of terms is in the order of in creasing intension when each term in the series
(except the first) connotes more attributes than the one preceding it. In other words, each
term in the series (except the first) is more specific than the one preceding it. (A term is
specific to the degree that it connotes more attributes.) The order of decreasing intension
is the reverse of that of increasing intension.
 A series of terms is in the order of increasing extension when each term in the series
(except the first) denotes a class having more members than the class denoted by
the term preceding it. In other words, the class size gets larger with each successive
term. Decreasing extension is, of course, the reverse of this order.

 increasing intension: : animal, mammal, feline, tiger

increasing extension : tiger, feline, mammal, animal
Definition and their purpose
 Over the years philosophers have held various conflicting views about the purpose of
definitions. For Plato, to mention just one, definitions were intended to explicate the
meaning of certain eternal essences or forms, such as justice, piety, and virtue. For
most logicians today, however, definitions are intended exclusively to explicate the
meaning of words.
 In conformity with this latter position, we may define definition as a group of
words that assigns a meaning to some word or group of words. Accordingly, every
definition consists of two parts: the definiendum and the definiens.
 The definiendum is the word or group of words that is supposed to be defined, and
the definiens is the word or group of words that does the defining.
 For example, in the definition “‘Tiger’ means a large, striped, ferocious feline
indigenous to the jungles of India and Asia .
Stipulative Definitions
A stipulative definition assigns a meaning to a word for the first time. This may involve either coining a new word or giving a new
meaning to an old word. The purpose of a stipulative definition is usually to replace a more complex expression with a simpler one.

The need for a stipulative definition is often occasioned by some new phenomenon
or development. For example, a few years ago the attempt was made at a certain zoo to
crossbreed tigers and lions. Because of the genetic similarity of the two species, the attempt succeeded . The names “tigon” and
“liger” were selected.
“Tigon” was taken to mean the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion, and “liger” the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger.
Another use for stipulative definitions is to set up secret codes.

Because people are continually coming up with new creations, whether it be food concoctions, inventions, modes of behavior, or
kinds of apparel, stipulative definitions are continually being introduced to name them.
 Because a stipulative definition is a completely arbitrary assignment of a meaning
to a word for the first time, there can be no such thing as a “true” or “false” stipulative definition . Furthermore, for the same reason, a
stipulative definition cannot provide
any new information about the subject matter of the definiendum.
Lexical Definitions

 A lexical definition is used to report the meaning that a word already has in a
language. Dictionary definitions are all instances of lexical definitions .
 lexical definitions have the further purpose of eliminating the ambiguity that
would otherwise arise if one of these meanings were to be confused with another .
 an expression is ambiguous when it can be interpreted as having two or more clearly
distinct meanings in a given context.
 Because a lexical definition lists the various meanings that a word can have, a person
who consults such a definition is better prepared to avoid ambiguous constructions of
his or her own and to detect those of others .
Precising Definitions

 The purpose of a precising definition is to reduce the vagueness of a word.

 an expression is vague if there are borderline cases in which it is impossible to tell if the
word applies or does not apply. Words such as “fresh,”“rich,” and “poor” are vague .
 Once the vagueness of such words is reduced by a precising definition, one can reach a
decision as to the applicability of the word to a specific situation .
 Whenever words are taken from ordinary usage and used in a highly systematic
context such as science, mathematics, medicine, or law, they must always be clarified
by means of a precising definition.
 The terms “force,”“energy,”“acid,”“element,”“number,”“equality,”“contract,” and
“agent” have all been given precising definitions by specific disciplines .
 A trial in California addressed the question of whether a man who had ridden a
bicycle while intoxicated violated the motor vehicle code. The question concerned
whether, for these purposes, a bicycle could be considered a “vehicle.”
Precising Definitions

 Another example involves the practice of surgical transplantation of vital organs.

Before a heart transplant can be conducted, the donor must be dead; otherwise the
surgeon will be accused of murder. If the donor is dead for too long, however, the
success of the transplant will be imperiled. But exactly when is a person considered to
be dead?
Theoretical Definitions

 A theoretical definition assigns a meaning to a word by suggesting a theory that

gives a certain characterization to the entities that the term denotes .
 Such a definition provides a way of viewing or conceiving these entities that suggests
deductive consequences, further investigation (experimental or otherwise), and
whatever else would be entailed by the acceptance of a theory governing these
entities.
 “‘Heat’ means the energy associated with the random motion of the molecules of a
substance.” This definition does more than merely assign a meaning to a word; it
provides a way of conceiving the physical phenomenon that is heat.
Persuasive Definitions

 The purpose of a persuasive definition is to engender a favorable or unfavorable

attitude toward what is denoted by the definiendum. This purpose is accomplished by
assigning an emotionally charged or value-laden meaning to a word while making it
appear that the word really has (or ought to have) that meaning in the language in
which it is used.
 “Abortion” means the ruthless murdering of innocent human beings.
“Abortion” means a safe and established surgical procedure whereby a woman is
relieved of an unwanted burden.

 The objective of a persuasive definition is to influence the attitudes of the reader or

listener; thus, such definitions may be used with considerable effectiveness in political
speeches
Definitional Techniques

In this section we will investigate some of the techniques used to produce these definitions. These
techniques may be classified in terms of the two kinds of meaning, intensional and extensional.

An extensional definition is one that assigns a meaning to a term by indicating the
members of the class that the definiendum denotes. There are at least three ways of indicating the
members of a class: pointing to them, naming them individually, and naming them in groups : The three
kinds of definitions that result are called, respectively, demonstrative or ostensive definitions,
enumerative definitions, and definitions by subclass.
 Demonstrative (ostensive) definitions are probably the most primitive form of
definition. All one need know to understand such a definition is the meaning of pointing. As the
following examples illustrate, such definitions may be either partial or complete, depending on whether
all or only some of the members of the class denoted by the definiendum are pointed to:
“Chair” means this and this and this—as you point to a number of chairs, one after the
other.
Definitional Techniques

 If you were attempting to teach a foreigner your own native language, and neither of
you understood a word of each other’s language, demonstrative definition would almost certainly be one of
the methods you would use.
Because demonstrative definitions are the most primitive, they are also the most limited.
 In addition to the limitations affecting all extensional definitions (which will
be discussed shortly), there is the obvious limitation that the required objects be available for being pointed at

II. Enumerative definitions assign a meaning to a term by naming the members of

the class the term denotes. Like demonstrative definitions, they may also be either partial or complete
“Actress” means a person such as Nicole Kidman, Emma Thompson, or Demi Moore.
 Planet means such as earth, mars, Venus and …
 Horn of Africa means such As Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti And Ethiopia

 A definition by subclass assigns a meaning to a term by naming subclasses of the

class denoted by the term
“Tree” means an oak, pine, elm, spruce, maple, and the like.
“Flower” means a rose, lily, daisy, geranium, zinnia, and the like .
 Polygon means such as triangle, rectangle, polygon and so on.
 Animals means such birds, fish, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.
Intensional (Connotative) Definitions

 An intensional definition is one that assigns a meaning to a word by indicating the

qualities or attributes that the word connotes.
 There are four types of intentional definitions : synonymous definition, etymological definition,
operational definition, and definition by genus and difference.
 A synonymous definition is one in which the definiens is a single word that connotes the same
attributes as the definiendum. In other words, the definiens is a synonym of the word being
defined. Examples:

 “Physician” means doctor.

“Intentional” means willful
 Observe means see
 Reach means arrive
 When a single word can be found that has the same intensional meaning as the
word being defined, a synonymous definition is a highly concise way of assigning a
meaning.
Intensional (Connotative) Definitions

 An etymological definition assigns a meaning to a word by disclosing the word’s

ancestry in both its own language and other languages.

 For example, the English word “license” is derived from the Latin verb
licere, which means to be permitted, and the English word “captain” derives from the
Latin noun caput, which means head

 Etymological definitions have special importance for at least two reasons. The first is
that the etymological definition of a word often conveys the word’s root meaning or
seminal meaning from which all other associated meanings are derived.

 Unless one is familiar with this root meaning, one often fails to place other meanings in their
proper light or to grasp the meaning of the word when it is used in its most proper sense.
For example, the word “principle” derives from the Latin word principium, which means
beginning or source.
 Accordingly, the “principles of physics” are those fundamental laws that provide the
“source” of the science of physics .
Intensional (Connotative) Definitions

 The second reason for the importance of etymological definitions is that if one is familiar with the etymology of
one English word, one often has access to the meaning of
an entire constellation of related words.
 For example, the word “orthodox” derives from the two Greek words ortho, meaning right or straight, and doxa,
meaning belief or opinion. From this, one might grasp that “orthopedic” has to do with straight bones (originally
in children—pais in Greek means child), and that “orthodontic” has to do with straight teeth (odon in Greek
means tooth) .

 Similarly, if one is familiar with the etymological definition of “polygon” (from the Greek words poly, meaning
many, and ganos meaning angle), one might grasp the meanings of “polygamy” (from gamos, meaning marriage)
and “polygraph” (from graphein, meaning to write .
 Democracy means
 Bureaucracy
 meritocracy
 An operational definition assigns a meaning to a word by specifying certain experimental procedures that
determine whether or not the word applies to a certain thing.
Intensional (Connotative) Definitions

 One substance is “harder than” another if and only if one scratches the other when the
two are rubbed together.
A subject has “brain activity” if and only if an electroencephalograph shows oscillations
when attached to the subject’s head.
A “potential difference” exists between two conductors if and only if a voltmeter shows a
reading when connected to the two conductors.
A solution is an “acid” if and only if litmus paper turns red when dipped into it .
 A definition by genus and difference assigns a meaning to a term by identifying a
genus term and one or more difference words that, when combined, convey the meaning of
the term being defined.

 In logic, “genus” and “species” have a somewhat different meaning than they have
in biology. In logic, “genus” simply means a relatively larger class, and “species” means
a relatively smaller subclass of the genus.
 The “specific difference,” or “difference,” is the attribute or attributes that distinguish the
various species within a genus.
 “Daughter” means female offspring
“Ice” means frozen water