2009 Fall Proseminar Notes on Defintion

Stipulative Definition - definition that arises from the deliberate assignment of a meaning; Ex. The number that is equal to a trillion trillions (10^24) is called a yotta. (JA)

Synonymous Definition: Providing another word, whose meaning is already understood, that has the same meaning as the word being defined.

Example: According to the dictionary Quick is defined as Moving or functioning rapidly and energetically; speedy (EH)

Definition in the Meditations

Descartes in his Second Meditation (of the nature of the human mind, and that it is more easily known than the body) defines a thinking being as "a being which doubts, which understands, which conceives, which affirms, which denies, which wills, which rejects, which imagines also, and which perceives" (Modern Philosophy, 4th ed, page 25). It seems to me that this is a "Precising Definition" since it attempts to relieve the definition of a "thinking being" of its vagueness. One could potentially argue, however, that the definiens could be just as vague as the definiendum. (Taylor Wilkinson)