Vizzini: Inconceivable! Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
A definition is not a description; it implies, but does not mention all the characteristics of a concept's units...A definition must identify the nature of the units, i.e., the essential characteristics without which the units would not be the kind of existents they are.
But it is important to remember that a definition implies all the characteristics of the units, since it identifies their essential, not their exhasustive, characteristics;
All definitions are contextual, and a primitive definition does not contradict a more advanced one: the latter merely expands the former.
A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of the units subsumed under a concept.
It is often said that definitions state the meaning of words. This is true, but it is not exact. A word is merely a visual-auditory symbol used to represent a concept; a word has no meaning other than that of the concept it symbolizes, and the meaning of the concept consists of its units. It is not words, but concepts that man defines - by specifying their referents.
The purpose of a definition is to distinguish a concept from all other concepts and thus to keep its units differentiated from all other existents.
Since the definition of a concept is formulated in terms of other concepts, it enables man, not only to identify and retain a concept, but also to establish the relationships, the hierarchy, the integration of all his concepts and thus the integration of his knowledge.
Thus a definition complies with the two essential functions of consciousness: differentiation and integration. The differentia isolates the units of a concept from all other existents; the genus indicates their connection to a wider group of existents.
To know the exact meaning of the concepts one is using, one must know their correct definitions, one must be able to retrace the specific (logical, not chronological) steps by which they were formed, and one must be able to demonstrate their connection to their base in perceptual reality.
Although definitions are contextual, they are not arbitrary. The correct definition at any stage is determined by the facts of reality. Given any specific set of entities to be differentiated, it is the actual nature of the entities that determines the distinguishing characteristics.
Definitions are determined by the facts of reality - within the context of one's knowledge. Both aspects of this statement are crucial: reality and the context of knowledge; existence and consciousness.
The final step in concept formation is definition. This step is essential to every concept except axiomatic concepts and concepts denoting sensations.
A proposition can have no greater validity - no more of a relation to reality - than do the concepts that make it up. The precondition of the quest for truth, therefore, is the formulation of proper definitions.
And though we typically use *receive* to mean "to acquire" something, the dictionary says that receive also means "to believe" or "to accept as true."
Vizzini: Inconceivable!
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.