DEFINITION 1
DEFINITION AND ARGUMENT
1. Defining definition
The definition of a word is a description of its meaning(s) in relation to its use(s).
Not only words but also phrases need to be defined. Fixed or semi-fixed phrases, that is idiomatic expressions, (beating around the bush), need to be defined, because their global meaning does not result from the mechanical combination of the meanings of their components.
Moreover, social life produces conventional expressions that are used with a specific meaning that requires a definition:
What is a single parent?
What is an emergency situation? An urgent case?
Depending on the nature of the word and the circumstances of the questioning, these questions ask for the meaning of the word, or for information about the kind of object to which the word refers, or about the circumstances in which it is possible to use the word.
In argumentative situations, even the meaning of current words may be in dispute: What is an educated person?
The meaning of a word in ordinary language is not a “backstage spirit” animating the word, but a discourse “equivalent”; “having the same meaning”:
uncle = “mother’s or father’s brother”
[definiendum] = [definiens]
The definition establishes a semantic equivalence between a word, the definiendum, “that which is is to be defined”, the dictionary entry, and a discourse, the definiens “that which defines” (sometimes called “definition” by metonymy).
The definiens is a discourse that answers questions such as “what does the word X mean?” “What is X?”
From a logical point of view, the equivalence definiendum / definiens satisfies two requirements, one semantic and one formal.
— In semantic terms (intension) definiens and definiendum must have the same meaning.
— In formal terms (extension), the definiens and definiendum must be interchangable in all contexts, the global meaning of the passage remaining the same.
The definition is substituted for the word defined, when the discourse containing that word needs to be clarified; the word is substituted for its definition when the discourse needs to be shortened.
Beyond its semantics and lexicological characteristics, the definition of “fish” as a species of animal draws on the field of natural science. The definition of “democracy”, “citizen” and “citizenship”, combines political science and political and ideological ideals. The definition of “single parent” refers to laws and regulations. The vague concept of a “cultured person” will combine a little of all the arts and letters. Advances in knowledge, history, and variations in usage will change the meaning of the words and the kinds of beings and objects they refer to.
Argumentative situations will destabilize the meaning of words, and the definition of commonly used words may require revision and further clarification.
2. Types of definition
Different methods can be used to construct a sound definition of a word, see Arguments Establishing vs Exploiting a relationship. They suggest criteria that come to the fore when the meaning of a word is at stake, when one wants to destabilize an unsatisfactory definition, or when one wants to justify a challenged one.
2.1 Ostension: Indicating the meaning of a word or a phrase
Ostension is a gesture, the act of showing someone a concrete object. To defining a concrete noun by ostension is to show a sample of the object or beings being referred to:
You want to know what a duck is? Well, look at that one just flying by!
Ostension underlies the famous argument:
I cannot explain how, but I know a boletus badius when I see one!
Ostensive definitions can only be applied to concrete beings that are materially present in the context of speech. Ostension is fundamentally ambiguous: the same gesture shows the chestnut horse and its chestnut color, but it is disambiguated by the context.
Ostension bypasses meaning; it lacks the discursive element considered essential for a proper definition.
Ostension is an important tool for defining concrete things. The more the concrete object or being resembles the prototype of its category, the more effective ostension will be.
2.2 Focusing on the referential capacities of the word
The consideration of a variety of cases is crucial for the critique of definition: Does the definition under scrutiny allow us to refer correctly to all the entities or cases currently referred to by the corresponding name? S. Arguments to justify a definition.
2.2.1 Definition by exemplification
Definition by exemplification approaches the meaning of a word by giving an example of its use:
What is a hoax? Well, that is, for example, remember when reputable media announced that blonds would disappear by 2202? [1]
The example given, if prototypical, provides a good basis for understanding the meaning of the word.
2.2.2 Definition by enumeration (in extension)
Definitions in extension proceed by the enumerating all the individuals to which the word or expression refers to. Thus, the expression “conventional binary logic connector” is defined in extension as a member of the set {~, &, V, W, →}, S. Connective
A democracy is a state mentioned in the list of democracies established in the Democracy Dictionary:
Syldavia is a democracy because it is on the “Democracy List”.
The definition by extension provides the basis for case-by-case arguments. If “honestly acquired money” is defined as acquired “either through work, inheritance, financial investment, or winning the lottery”, then it can be indirectly proven that a sum of money is ill-gotten by showing that it was neither acquired by work, nor by inheritance, nor is the legitimate product of a financial investment, and so on.
2.3 Definition and instructions for use
2.3.1 Operational definition
An operational definition associates a notion X with a set of operations that make it possible permitting to determine whether or not that individual is an X. An operational definition does not say what X is in essence; it simply indicates how to find all individuals to which X refers.
The term “prime number” is defined as “a number which is divisible only by itself and by the unit”. This definition unambiguously determines whether or not a given number is a prime or not.
2.3.3 Functional definitions
As operational definitions, functional definitions do not consider the ature, or the technical design of the named instrument. The referent is characterized in terms of its functions, goals, objectives. Knowing what a compass is, is knowing that, it points (magnetic) north, and is used accordingly.
2.4 Describing the meaning of the word
2.4.1 Essentialist definition (definition in intension)
Essentialist definitions require that the definition “focus on the essence (and not the accident), and proceed by the next genus and specific difference” (Chenique 1975, p. 117). An individual is given the name of its category, identified by a set of generic characteristics common to its parent genus and differentiating characteristics that specify its species, see Classification.
Essentialist definitions work well for natural species. In general vocabulary, the contrast is between central and peripheral characteristics. A dictionary of Syldavian institutions would include an entry “President of the Syldavian Republic (SR)”, defined by his or her mode of election, constitutional role etc. These core elements can be supplemented by anecdotal characteristics, such as “lives in the Parnassus Palace”; “her spouse is called ‘the first lady or man of Syldavia’”, etc. The latter information refers unambiguously to the President (it applies to him or her and only to him or her, the condition of substitutability is fulfilled), but doesn’t contribute to the clarification of the meaning of “President of the SR”. From the Aristotelian point of view,, free accommodation at the Parnassus Palace is not an essential characteristic of the office of President of the SR.
Essentialist definitions try to express the true meaning of the word, which corresponds to the very nature of the things it designates, i.e. their permanent essence. They go beyond the linguistic knowledge of the word (lexical definition), and even beyond the knowledge of the things defined (encyclopedic definition), always reflecting an imperfect state of knowledge.
In Platonic terms, an essentialist definition claims to retain the idea of the thing: “What is virtue?”. In theory, the essentialist definition is governed by a methodology, based on an “intuition of the essence of the thing”, S. Classification. Ancient dialectic was the instrument used to construct correct essentialist definitions.
While a pragmatic definition of the word democracy is based on the many socio-historical uses of the word, an essentialist definition seeks to establish the ideal, essential characteristics of democracy, sometimes condemning current uses of the word in the name of “true democracy”, S. True meaning. It may be that no real democracy corresponds to the essence of democracy. The essentialist definition is used as an important critical tool in idealist or conservative argumentation (Weaver 1953).
2.4.2 Lexicographic definition
Lexicographic definitions are found in language dictionaries, as opposed to encyclopedic dictionaries. Language dictionaries must meet several conditions:
— Collect all the words and idioms of a language (or the vocabulary used at a given time).
— Provide a description of their various meanings, their usage in speech, and their stereotypical figurative usage.
— Give the typical contexts of use associated with these meanings.
— Give the syntactic constructions that correspond to these meanings.
— Locate them in the different semantic fields to which they belong, i.e. indicate their relationships with their (quasi-) synonyms and antonyms, and their position in their derivational families.
The dictionary is a highly legitimated and legitimating institution. From the perspective of argumentation studies, since lexical meaning is inferential, the dictionary should be seen first and foremost as a vast store of “inferring principles”, S. Argumentation based on a definition (3).
Linguistic definitions draw simultaneously on different kinds of definitions. Knowledge of words (lexical definitions) and knowledge of things (encyclopedic scientific definitions) are theoretically clearly separated. However, they are, inextricably linked for current terms that have an encyclopedic definition. “When the barometer falls, the weather turns bad”: is this deduction supported by a meteorological physical law that expresses knowledge about the variations in atmospheric pressure? Or is it contained in the linguistic meaning of the word? To knowi the functional meaning of the word “barometer” is to know that “when it falls, the weather turns bad.”
All words are worthy of a lexical definition, but only those that have “plenty of being” are worthy of scientific knowledge, and are registered in the encyclopedia. The boundary between the two categories is unstable and depends on the state of research; conversation, once considered a futile and elusive thing, has been fruitfully conceptualized by conversation analysis and ethnomethodology. These sciences have given “more being” to their object.
2.4.3 Scientific definition of concepts and lexicographic definition of words
Encyclopedias collect only conceptual terms. Encyclopedic definitions summarize the state of knowledge about things and concepts referred to by the term. A good definition of a thing stabilizes a well-constructed knowledge.
Scientific definitions may use a redefined common term, (see infra stipulative definitions). The the physicist’s mass is not the dictionary’s mass:
In physics, mass is a property of a physical body. It is the measure of an object’s resistance to acceleration (a change in its state of motion) when a force is applied. It also determines the strength of its mutual gravitational attraction to other bodies. In the theory of relativity, a related concept is the mass-energy content of a system. The SI unit of mass is the kilogram (kg). (Wikipedia, Mass).
In common language, the word mass is defined and illustrated as follows,
1
a: a quantity or aggregate of matter usually of considerable size
b (1): expanse, bulk — (2): massive quality or effect — (3): the main part or body <the great mass of the continent is buried under an ice cap (…) (4): aggregate, whole <men in the mass>
c: the property of a body that is a measure of its inertia and that is commonly taken as a measure of the amount of material it contains and causes it to have weight in a gravitational field
2
: a large quantity, amount, or number <a mass of material>
3
a: a large body of persons in a group <a mass of spectators>
b: the great body of the people as contrasted with the elite —often used in plural <the underprivileged and disadvantaged masses (…) (MW, Mass)
Arguments that establish a scientific definition of things are domain dependent. It took an astronomy conference was necessary to redefine the term planet, and end the controversy over the status of Pluto.
The common definition can be hardly recognizable under the technical definition. The following definition corresponds to an everyday experience:
1. A blocking of the alpha activity preceded by a transitional element that is expressed in the cortex region (a temporal tip-cortex)
2. A more or less pronounced twitch (a start);
3. Neurovegetative events, such as tachycardia and decreased skin resistance.
So, I was referring to the “classic” surprise reaction that you all know.
Henri Gastaud, [Discussion], 1974[1]
This is a scientific definition of surprise, “in the sense of ‘surprise reaction’ that is to say the set of phenomena observed by the neurophysiologist, when a sudden unexpected stimulus occurs” (Ibid.).
2.5 Stipulative definition, neology and baptism
Stipulative definitions are also called “definition of name”:
The only definitions recognized in geometry are what the logicians calls definitions of names, that is, the arbitrary application of names to things which are clearly designated by perfectly known terms. (Pascal Geom., p. 525)
They play a key role in the scientific creation of words. When a new class of phenomena or beings has been identified and characterized, they must be given a name. While in the general case, the process of definition begins with a given term and seeks to clarify its pre-established definition, stipulative definitions begin with a clear and well-established meaning (the definiens), and seek a word to refer to that content; it is a baptism. For this purpose, one might choose an ordinary word stripped of its ordinary meaning. By convention, physicists use the word charm to refer of a particular particle, the charm quark. The equivalence condition between the technical use of the word and its definition is fully satisfied.
In other cases, the word chosen to name the new phenomenon retains something of its ordinary meaning, and it is arguable that “my word fits the nature of the phenomenon better than yours ”. Since everyone has a preferred terminology, the relatively arbitrary nature of the stipulative neologism can lead to terminological inflation and a “war of words”, that can be overcome by invoking the primacy of the reality of things. Should we call such patterns of argumentation :
serial reasoning or subordinate argumentation?
linked reasoning or coordinated argumentation?
convergent reasoning or multiple argumentation?
If no agreement can be reached, the question can be settled radically, “You can even call it ‘Ivan Ivanovich’ as long as we all know what you mean.” (Jakobson 1971, p. 557).
3. Argumentation and definition
3.1 Argumentation constructing or evaluating a definition
Definitions are constructed argumentatively in reference to a set of rules, S. Argumentations constructing a definition.
These rules generate a set of specific argumentative lines that are exploited when a conflict of definitions arises, such as:
What exactly do you call a terrorist, a democracy, a spin doctor?
Persuasive definitions are definitions that are restructured to include or exclude an individual from their scope. They can be criticized as violating the non-circularity principle.
3.2 Argumentation based on a pre-existing definition
In this second case, the definition of a word is used as a store of arguments.
3.1.1 Definition used to categorize and name an individual
The argumentation naming an individual attaches this individual to a category name W, in reference to the definition of this category, S. Categorization and naming.
This is a mushroom
3.1.2 Definition used to enrich the description of an individual
In this form of argumentation, the speaker assigns to an individual any characteristic mentioned in the definition of its name.
If Syldavia is a democracy (category), and that “having fixed election dates” is a defining essential characteristic of democracy, then one might infer that there will be elections in Syldavia in the not too distant future, S. Argumentation based on a definition.
3.1.3 A discursive trick: Demanding a definition
The demand for a definition can be made with the intention of blocking the development of the opponent’s line of argument, S. Destruction of speech. The following exchange takes place in a discussion about different personalities competing for a scientific distinction:
S1: — Doe has a lot of prestige.
S2: — What do you call prestige?
This inevitably leads to a stasis of definition, a stalemate, in which many participants are not eager to participate.
The internal journal of a research institution objects to a traditional claim of laboratories:
“[Lack of technical staff] would lead to a lack of “optimal efficiency” in laboratories. First of all, how do we define the optimal efficiency of a laboratory?
[1] Wikipedia, Disappearing blond gene (10-09-21)
[1] Gastaud H. (1974) “Discussion”. In Morin E. & Piattelli-Palmarini M. (eds). (1974). L’Unité humaine. Paris: Le Seuil. P. 183. [The Unity of mankind)