Critical Thinking Slide 3

CRITICAL THINKING & PRACTICAL REASONING

Session 3 – DEFINITIONS ( PART 2)

Session Overview
•In this session we shall continue with the discussion of the types of definition. Specifically, only stipulative and real definitions will be handled. Then we shall look at what it is for a term to be well-defined or open textured, and finally diagnose problems with definitions.
 
•Goals and Objectives
At the end of the session, the student will
1. understand the different ways a real definition could be called and the importance of such a definition.
2. Be able to recognize when a definition is vague, circular, too narrow and too broad.
3. Explain why well-defined term is most preferred to open textured.

Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
•Topic One: TYPES OF DEFINITION( CONTINUED)
a. Stipulative definition
b. Real definition
•Topic Two : WELL-DEFINED TERM VERSUS OPEN TEXTURED WORD.
•Topic Three PROBLEMS WITH DEFINITIONS

Topic One
TYPES OF DEFINITION(CONTINUED)

Stipulative Definition
•When the meaning of a word is agreed on for the purpose of debate or a discussion or a project then we say a stipulative definition has been established. Thus a stipulative definition is based on deliberation and agreement or through consensus.
•Example:
1.Suppose if some one says: that to love someone is to be willing to die for that person.
2.Take "human" to mean any member of the species Homo sapiens.
3.For the purposes of argumentation, we will define a "student" to be "a person under 18 enrolled in a local school."

Real Definitions.
•A real definition is a definition that provides the core meaning or the essential meaning of a word. That is to say a definition of what a word appropriately stands for.
•Such a definition provides all the features and only those features that appropriately belong to a word.
•Example:
1. Even number is any number that is divisible by two without a remainder.

•Real definition is also called well-defined definition, ideal definition, and eliminative definition.
• When a term is well defined, it means that the definition makes it completely clear all the things or objects in the world that are correctly called or picked out by the word

•For any eliminative definition, the definiendum could be eliminated and replaced by the definiens in every context where the word which is being defined is used. This is because the definition provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for using the word correctly.
•Illustration:
•Lets consider the definition of an even number as an eliminative definition.
•Even number is any whole number that is divisible by two without a remainder.

•Definiendum – even number
•Definiens – any whole number divisible by two without a remainder.
Now lets consider the statement “all multiples of two are even numbers” for the illustration.
1.All multiples of two are even numbers.
Results are 2, 4, 6, 8, 10,………..
2. All multiples of two are whole numbers divisible by two without any remainders.
Results are 2, 4, 6, 8, 10………

•We can see from the above illustration that when the defineindum was replaced with the definiens, the same meaning was obtained from the statement. The truth of the statement “all multiples of two are even numbers” remains the same.
•This is what it means to say a definition is eliminative.
•NB achieving the essential meaning of words enables us to avoid vagueness and ambiguity in the construction of the meanings of words.

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