From: David Picon Alvarez (eleuteri@myrealbox.com)
Date: Tue Jul 06 2004 - 12:17:10 MDT
> It is illogical only if you assume that definitions are the only way we
> can communicate ideas, but they are not, in fact they are not even very
> important. Most people on this planet could not give you a good non
> circular definition of anything if their life depended on it but they
> communicate just fine because examples are vastly more useful and are at
> the root of definitions anyway; how do you think dictionary makers get
> the knowledge to write their book?
Some things have definitions based on a cardinal object, that serves as
prototype, and those things are usually best defined by example. Other
things though, especially those things with strong referents in reality
(electrons, for example) can be formalized into more deductive type of
definitions, of course given certain axioms. All that said,
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Lang/LangSpad.htm makes a good argument against
using natural language as a vehicle for definition, as it's not a good
representational tool.
--David.
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