Definitions
Updated 2026-09-10
INTRODUCTION
English translation pending.
CORE DEFINITION
Definitions have fascinated philosophers since antiquity: Plato's early dialogues have Socrates ask what piety is, Anselm's ontological argument and Descartes's Fifth Meditation turn on a definition of God, and the work of Frege and Russell on number and of Tarski on truth shaped contemporary debate. Definitions fix the meaning or use of expressions, and traditional logic imposes two standards on them, eliminability and non-creativeness.
SCAFFOLDING EFFECT
Reduce cognitive load
- Locate the dispute: fix how the key term is defined and see whether the disagreement is merely verbal. - Test arguments: check whether a definition is quietly swapped, preventing a definition from serving as the conclusion. - Clarify concepts: distinguish genus and difference, operational, and ostensive definitions and choose the right kind.
Anchor fast decisions
Definitions fix the meaning or use of expressions so that arguments become testable. Different kinds serve different purposes: stipulative definitions introduce new notation, descriptive ones report usage, explicative ones replace a vague concept with a precise one, and ostensive ones connect a term to samples. Traditional logic adds two standards, eliminability and non-creativeness, barring new factual consequences.
MINIMUM ACTION
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Source support: Explicit
- plato.stanford.eduhttps://plato.stanford.edu/entries/definitions/verified
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