philosophy definitions

cognitive meaning 

information conveyed by the sentence.

emotive meaning

emotion the sentence expresses or tends to elicit.

Ex. There are approximately 20,000 homicides in the USA each year, with handguns being the most frequently instrument of death.

vagueness

does not have a clearly defined boundary. It is difficult to tell whether the term applies to the borderline cases or not.

Ex. rich, tall, poor, bald, fresh, etc.

ambiguity

more than one clearly distinct meaning in a given context.

Ex. bark, bank, ring, chest, stress, light, etc.

extension

consists of the set of things to which the term applies.

Nonverbal (Ostensive): pointing to objects Verbal:

Enumerative definition: Name the members of extension individually

Definition by subclass: Name the members of the extension in groups (rather than individually).

intension

consists of the properties a thing must have to be included in a term’s extension.

specifies the meaning of the term by indicating the properties a thing must have to be included in the term’s extension.

lexical

conventional or established intension of term.

stipulative

specifies the intension of term independently of convention or established use.

precising

reduces vagueness of a term by imposing limits on the conventional meaning.

theoretical

an intensional definition that attempts to provide an adequate understanding of the thing to which the term applies.

Ex. “Self”, “virtue”, “knowledge”

definies

word or words that do the defining.

definiendum

word being defined

subclass 

A class X is a subclass of a class Y given that every member of X is a member of Y.

proper subclass

Class X is a proper subclass of a class Y given that X is a subclass of Y but Y has members X lacks.

genus

class of objects

species

a proper subclass of a genus.

difference

the attribute that distinguishes the members of a given species from the members of other species in the same genus.