Words & Concepts
It is a systematic method of communication between humans through sound or visual media, usually made arbitrarily.
What is Language?
These concepts involve tangible entities in space and time, like tables and chairs, that are directly observable with the unaided senses.
What are Empirical concepts?
This defect occurs when a word has multiple distinct, mutually exclusive definitions across different contexts.
What is Ambiguity?
This type of definition provides specific examples or physically points directly to instances of the concept.
What is an Ostensive definition?
According to Wittgenstein, we know a concept belongs to a specific category because they share these two words, much like how board games, ball games, and Olympic games are all different but share traits.
What are Overlapping Similarities?
These represent mental ideas and intellectual constructs signified by words, consisting of thoughts rather than physical letters.
What are Concepts?
Concepts that refer to imaginary beings that do not exist in reality, such as unicorns or mermaids, belong to this classification.
What are Fictitious concepts?
Words like "adolescence" or "reasonable doubt" suffer from this defect because they lack a clear boundary or criterion for inclusion in their extension.
What is Vagueness?
This definition type outlines conventional dictionary usage within a standard language community.
What is a Reportive (or Lexical) definition?
Wittgenstein argued against the idea of a single essential trait, suggesting instead that concepts are connected through overlapping similarities known by this two-word phrase.
What is Family Resemblance?
Heraclitus's quote "You cannot step in the same river twice" highlights the necessity of general definitions, which can unfortunately lead to this logical flaw.
What are Hasty Generalizations?
Malleability and magnetism are examples of this concept type, which only reveals its traits once a specific operation or test is performed.
What are Dispositional concepts?
This logical fallacy occurs when a speaker unconsciously shifts between different meanings of the same word within a single passage or argument
What is Equivocation?
This type proposes a specialized, unique meaning for a term within a particular discipline, such as coining new terms in science.
What is a Stipulative definition?
The phrase "Can you pass the salt?" is a prime example of this three-word Wittgensteinian theory, which dictates that a word's definition relies on how it is actively utilized in reality.
What is "Meaning is Use"?
Phrases like "Side Quest," "Roman Empire," and "Chronically Online" are examples of this specific type of term, which uses two or more words to express a concept.
What is a Complex Term?
Numbers and perfect geometric shapes are purely abstract creations of the mind classified as this type of concept.
What are Analytic concepts?
A definition that mistakenly includes non-members—such as defining a bird as "an animal that flies," which includes bats—fails Rule 1 of analytic definitions for being this.
What is Too Broad?
Invented by P.W. Bridgman, this definition type anchors theoretical concepts by specifying them strictly in terms of performable procedures or tests.
What is an Operational definition?
According to Wittgenstein, the specific contextual settings in which words are actively used and acquire distinct meanings are known as these.
What are Language-Games?
This concept analysis category identifies the specific individual members or instances that belong to a concept's domain (e.g., dogs and cats for the concept "animal").
What is Extension?
When an entity's empirical status is uncertain, this specific test dictates that multiple observers in a community must be able to independently verify it.
What is the Inter-subjectivity test?
Defining an "alien" simply as a "foreigner" violates Rule 2 of analytic definitions because it relies on this specific error.
What is a Circular Definition? (or What is Circularity?)
Inside an analytic definition's definiens, this term refers to the broader class to which a species belongs (e.g., "Animals" is this to the species "Mammal").
What is a Genus?
This rule states that you should never engage in a verbal dispute without first assuring that both of you use a word in the exact same way
What is the Cardinal Rule?