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What are Definitions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

John R. Reid
John R. Reid*
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Extract

At the outset it will be useful, I think, to distinguish the following components in the definitional situation:

1. The “definitional relation” that holds, in a given case, between either (1) a definiendum and definiens (a dyadic symmetrical relation between symbols) or (2) a definiendum, definiens, and referent (a triadic relation between (a) the symbol being defined, (b) the defining symbol, which is usually complex and includes descriptive terms, and (c) any member of the class of non-symbolic referents by means of references to which the descriptive terms in (b) are given their semantical meaning—the relation between (b) and (c) being non-symmetrical, even though the relata are, in some contests, functionally equivalent. The former syntactical relation connects one symbol (the definiendum) with another symbol (the definiens); the latter semantical relation also does this, but includes the additional factor of a descriptive reference, via the definiens, to a class of non-symbolic referents.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1946 , pp. 170 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1946

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References

Notes

1 Such a rule may be further characterized as personal or social: that is, it may be set up by, and explicitly limited to, the symbol-functionings of one individual or the rule may be already established in the sense that it is habitually followed by some, most, or all members of a social group.

2 It is equally clear that definitions are neither implicit nor explicit tautologies; but that tautologies are only identifiable as such because we have already accepted some definitional rules according to which we may be said to interpret properly (or improperly) the relevant symbols in the tautologies.