What is the useful difference between “meaning” and “definition” of a concept?
I have noticed lately that words (given the way we use language) must exist before their definitions, and concepts must exist before their words.
To employ a crudely simple example, primate 1 decides to tell the epic story of a great hunt. Primate 2 also wants to invoke that story, so they smear mud and crushed berries on the wall of their cave to represent some part of it. Then, primate 3 carves small versions of the animals and the hunters out of wood, much to the delight of the children. I cannot pinpoint at what point in that story where it happened, but I am confident that the category “art” already exists in this hypothetical primate society.
At some point, primate 4 (realistically, probably thousands of primates 4 before it gains traction) realizes that these things share some commonality that makes them different from other sorts of things. It is here that the concept, and with it the word, “art” is coined. Of course, this concept (and thus its meaning, as all the primates currently employ it) can only draw content from the particulars any individual calls to mind when they think of “art,” and in particular from an intuitive sense of what does and does not “fit” the category, based on direct experience. This is why pieces that are unfamiliar or which provoke uncomfortable feelings are often dismissed as not “real art.” The emotional response interferes with their ability to process a particular piece (or a highly stigmatized genre) as belonging to that category.
Being a pedantic turd like myself, primate 5 asks primate 4 for a “definition.” After passing over a large goblet of hemlock, primate 4 obliges, and we’re off to the races.
I guess what I’m wondering is if there’s a word or phrase that denotes the difference between the working definition someone uses in daily life and the formal definition they’d give if asked, if this phenomenon has been studied in depth recently, and if there are any behavioral interventions that can help a person to bridge that gap, or at least be aware of it. Any help, and anything I might have missed, will be greatly appreciated.
To employ a crudely simple example, primate 1 decides to tell the epic story of a great hunt. Primate 2 also wants to invoke that story, so they smear mud and crushed berries on the wall of their cave to represent some part of it. Then, primate 3 carves small versions of the animals and the hunters out of wood, much to the delight of the children. I cannot pinpoint at what point in that story where it happened, but I am confident that the category “art” already exists in this hypothetical primate society.
At some point, primate 4 (realistically, probably thousands of primates 4 before it gains traction) realizes that these things share some commonality that makes them different from other sorts of things. It is here that the concept, and with it the word, “art” is coined. Of course, this concept (and thus its meaning, as all the primates currently employ it) can only draw content from the particulars any individual calls to mind when they think of “art,” and in particular from an intuitive sense of what does and does not “fit” the category, based on direct experience. This is why pieces that are unfamiliar or which provoke uncomfortable feelings are often dismissed as not “real art.” The emotional response interferes with their ability to process a particular piece (or a highly stigmatized genre) as belonging to that category.
Being a pedantic turd like myself, primate 5 asks primate 4 for a “definition.” After passing over a large goblet of hemlock, primate 4 obliges, and we’re off to the races.
I guess what I’m wondering is if there’s a word or phrase that denotes the difference between the working definition someone uses in daily life and the formal definition they’d give if asked, if this phenomenon has been studied in depth recently, and if there are any behavioral interventions that can help a person to bridge that gap, or at least be aware of it. Any help, and anything I might have missed, will be greatly appreciated.
Comments (40)
I think the 'working definition' is what dictionaries offer. The second kind of definition is sometimes called a convention (Popper suggests 'defining' science in terms of falsifiability, but of course none of us own the language, and dictionaries, unlike many philosophers, are descriptive rather than prescriptive.)
I would say the difference results from the fact that we use words to constrain meanings (or interpretations) in a holistic sense, rather than to define meanings in an atomistic sense.
So dictionary definitions are always awkward and frustrating as they treat language like a game of construction. A word carries some definite content in terms of its semantics. It starts with some complete certainty about the unit of information it represents.
But that is backwards when it comes to how language actually works as a semiotic code.
Instead what is fundamental to interpretation is that a vocal grunt could mean ... anything. It is a unit of radical uncertainty rather than one of absolute, unambiguous, certainty. But within a system of language practice, words come to exert constraints over some state of interpretation.
They are used in ways to limit the confusion between what I have in mind, and you have in mind. Or even when used as the self-adressed speech of our inner voices - our thinking - they are employed to narrow uncertainty about what it is that we actually "have in mind".
So take an example: I saw it again today. That "it" might tell you everything you need to know or pretty much nothing, depending on the degree of experiential context - semantics - we happen to share.
To define it, we could play 20 questions. We could hierarchically constrain the possibility of being uncertain as to what "it" means.
Is it animal, vegetable or mineral? Is it a large or small animal? Is it a domestic or wild large animal? Is it a herbivore or carnivore wild large animal.
Eventually we narrow "it" down to an elephant. But even then there is uncertainty in the word as much as certainty. Is the elephant african or asian? Regular or pygmy? Dead or alive? In the local zoo or running wild in the streets?
So the meaning of any word is potentially inexhaustible as any one word must always retain a fruitful degree of interpretive uncertainty. If a word in fact fitted all exemplar cases too closely, speech would cease to have its creative edge, its flexibility of being able to encompass any number of one off, or particular, locutions.
That is why dictionary definitions are rather hateful. They are language treated as something dead and robotic, rather than lively and endlessly creative.
We can always give a definition if we must. But we are also always aware of how much the idea of absolutely pinning down a word meaning goes against the whole spirit of effective communication.
:up:
Quoting apokrisis
I like that you stress narrowing as opposed to elimination...and those scare claws around have in mind.
Quoting apokrisis
:up:
Quoting apokrisis
:up:
That which makes talking worthwhile makes 'perfect' talk impossible. The possibility of recontextualization comes at the cost of an irreducible ambiguity. The 'mind' is interpretation?
Lewis Carroll nailed it in Alice Through the Looking Glass..
I very much doubt a lexicographer would agree with you on that.
A pedant would surely disagree with me. But amusingly ... "Lexicographers define words but still lack a clear and unambiguous understanding of the word lexicographer."
And in case you haven't considered the art involved....
Would you now expect a lexicographer to agree with your re-statement? Did you suddenly change your mind? :up:
I was talking about the folk who pedantically demand dictionary definitions in - for example - philosophical discussions. Those who have to deal with words professionally, like lexicographers, would understand that definitions can only be guides and not actually definite.
I find that this is often overlooked. Of course lexicographers are just people who go to school to study the art/science of creating these very strange books known as dictionaries. Unless they are equivalent to high priests, they merely articulate/condense what words do in the wild. The art is to minimize the violence involved in decontextualization. As others have noted, you have to already be 'in' a living language to use a dictionary, for words are defined only in terms of other words. The signified terns out to be (or at least to seem like) nothing but more signifiers.
As others have noted, a thing can be described in terms of everything that it is not. Difference/distinction plays a central role.
Yep. That is the definition of a constraint. It does not specify the exact nature of some action. It instead narrows the scope of the possible by eliminating every other alternative.
I am reminded of the real numbers being defined as systems of nested intervals of rational numbers (Bachmann's largely forgotten vision.) The real number is progressively but never finally specified by the ejection of rational numbers from consideration/possibility.
Babies learn language long before they learn to read. People don't give children definitions, they talk to them, tell them things, ask them questions. Babies and little kids build their worlds at the same time they build their language. Their, our, minds are built that way. People learn the meaning of language by using it. Meaning is usage.
Definitions come much later. People don't need to know what hamburgers are, what to call their dogs. We only need definitions so we can know what "onomatopoeia" and "dorsal fin" mean.
I don't think you and I are saying the same thing. Definition is defined as a written or spoken statement of the meaning of a word or phrase. It seems that you are equating "working definition" and "meaning." Is that correct? A meaning and a definition are not equivalent.
Quoting Brad Thompson
I don't see how this is true.
I don’t know a lot about how words came about but I do know a little something else about langue, meaning, definitions, human nature and psychology that might help you in your philosopyhsing.
Language is constructed with syntax ((form(x and, y then z)) and semantics (meaning) and is always prone to misinterpretations stemming from ambiguity and lack of clarity in constructed sentences. This is especially true in communication because people are, a lot of times very unclear. There are for some languages, a goverment institution that gives out lexicons and such deciding what words are "real" words and what they mean. What people think a word means is often based on their schooling, upbringing, socioeconomic background, circles etc.
If you want to be understood you need to be aware of what words generally mean, but also what they mean, and could mean to the recipient at hand. Central to this is the concept doxa; basically everything you hold as a truth that is not necessarily true. Example: what does the word fate mean.
I find it silly how a lot of debate and philosophy usually boils down to a debate over semantics, (what does this word mean? etc.) It means whatever the recipient thinks it means, always has, always will. The romans did a lot of thinking on this. Central to it is also identity, group thinking, ideology, metafors and so on.
Words can as you said bring about emotion, and this can be understood with common sense and does not require deep evolutionary psychological thinking. Say you are at war and someone mentions the other country? This may bring about feelings of fear, hope, national pride. Politicians use this kind of thinking all the time.
When it comes to art that's a different beast entirely. As anti-art (art made to not be art) was being considered art by the main stream during the da-daist wave, one could argue; because art specifically made not to be art, is now considered art, then anything can be art. At least this is what you say if you talk to a museum guide. Before that the conceptual definition of art was much more narrow if you understand what i mean.
Talking about words and groups the word sociolect is one to know. It's a way to speak used by a group and can contain rad slang words. Think surfer dudes riding gnarly waves. If a group of any size decides a word ? means something then it does, later that word may enter the dictionary, later it may become frooptwwyth.
This is wrong. If words existed before definitions then why do different languages that use different words have the same definition? How is it that different string of scribbles mean the same thing? To translate different words from different languages means the different words have the same meaning. We're not sharing words. We're sharing meanings.
What does the word, "word" mean? Seems like scribbles existed before words and "word" existed after to distinguish different scribbles from other scribbles.
Seems like the acts we engage in existed prior to the verbs we use to identify them and characteristics existed before the adjectives we use to categorize them.
You seem to be conflating what some scribble could arbitrarily mean when not being used with with what it means when it used. I'm sure you have something specific you mean when you use your words, or else what are you actually saying?
There's a definition for the word "coffee" but I recall someone telling me that when a girl offers you coffee, she means something else :wink:
[quote=Ludwig Wittgenstein] [s]Definition[/s] Meaning is use.[/quote]
And as I said, words are only specific when used and arbitrary when not. The only example I can think of when words are "used" and the meaning is not specific is when a politician speaks in generalities and platitudes, essentially not saying anything useful. Another example might be the word salad and misuse of terms that creates the philosophical problems one claims they are attempting to solve that appears on these forums regularly. So I see arbitrary use of words as a misuse of words.
Just like instincts come before knowledge, the heart grows before the brain, an atom already has electrons, so too does language have its own inherent characteristics.
Are you looking for the word, "vernacular"?
Quoting Brad Thompson
I would study linguistics if I were interested in a deep understanding of language, especially syntax, how sentences are formed, etc. That should give you a good grasp about something as simple as definitions. I've never studied that stuff so I can't really say more than that.
Sure. You see what you want to see. Words are flexible like that. You can misrepresent my words and convince yourself that was specifically what I was trying to say. Go for it. :up:
:up: Hadn't encountered that before, very useful term. Rad indeed. (Or sick. Or cool.....)
In some schools of Mah?y?na Buddhism, it is said that Buddha's actual spoken words (i.e. all of the content preserved in the Buddhist scriptures) are only baubles or toys to attract the ignorant. His actual meaning is forever unspoken and communicated in silence. (This is the gist of the legendary origin of Zen Buddhism in the Flower Sermon.)
I don't think this is what Derrida had in mind when he said 'there is nothing outside of the text' :wink:
Both Buddhism and Christianity require the relation of scripture to the context of a single, exemplary life for their actual meaning.
Early language was ideographic: consisting of logical signs for qualitative ideas; any emotional aspect or affect was considered evident in the human element of an exchange. Meaning is usage, and value is subjective.
Conceptual language developed later, enabling users to define their intended meaning to an extent without relying on the human element. Affect was increasingly incorporated into the language itself, often as a tool for manipulation, and ‘official’ or dictionary definitions became necessary to determine meaning from usage that often includes cultural perceptions of value or potential. Language took on a ‘life’ of its own, evolved in interaction with humanity, its meaning increasingly indeterminate and subjective.
It is this ‘official value’ attributed to names and concepts that Laozi cautioned against in the Tao Te Ching. His view was that our most stable and simplistic understanding of the world consisted of recognising our own affected relation to a consistently logical structure of qualitative ideas.
In all three traditions, meaning is use and the value/significance of a concept is subjective. A definition may be a suitable starting point for discussion, but it’s not the truth of language, whose meaning comes to life through perspective and interaction.
:lol: How can I misrepresent your words if your use of words is not specific? It seems like that can only happen if you are specific with your use if words.
Words, as arbitrary symbols, have the potential to be flexible, but are not flexible when used properly because you mean something specific when you use them that I can misrepresent. If you didn't mean anything specific, then what would I be misrepresenting?
But I was very specific in my use of the term "constraint" - defn: "something that controls what you do by keeping you within particular limits".
If your understanding of a constraint differs from this conventional usage, you would have to demonstrate the flexibility of semantics by adding some further constraint on my usage of the word, "constraint".
How do we know about early language and how it developed. It was my understanding that all languages which have been encountered, no matter how primitive the society, have fully developed grammars and vocabularies.
It is in evidence of their early use that we see the development. There are ideographic systems of languages, such as Chinese or Japanese, and Egyptian hieroglyphs that developed from a stationary, visual and official means of communication, and there are alphabetical and phonetic systems that developed more from the oral or performative communications of nomadic peoples.
The differences between these traditions developed very different conceptual systems. The Chinese developed an extremely logical syntax and grammar system, while their ‘vocabulary’ was less structured, with the same character sometimes communicating seemingly contradictory concepts, depending on its relational position in the text. Modern Chinese has developed stand-alone concepts by grouping characters together, but in traditional Chinese each character represented a non-conceptualised idea or quality of experience. There was no verbs or objects.
Nomadic people, less accustomed to trusting the permanence of structure, developed their language system by relating a subject to objects and sounds through action. Affect, energy and action was always a part of their communication system - so when they eventually developed more permanent symbols and systems, the structure of subject-action-object was a natural fit.
You are talking about written language. There are, or at least were, societies without written language. It is my understanding those societies still had fully developed spoken languages. I don't think anyone knows when and how language first developed or whether earlier humans used language.
I agree - no-one knows, but we can speculate based on their relation to socio-cultural systems - patterns in the way they think about and correlate ideas, concepts and objects. Societies without written language have life, affect and emotion surrounding their spoken language, similar to the oral traditions of early Anglo-Saxon, Greek and Roman cultures. For them, meaning IS use, and there would have been no need to incorporate a complete meaning of a concept in the language itself (ie. vocabulary and grammar), because human affect is never absent.
So any ‘concept’ in a spoken-only language would be undefined, and its meaning determined by use. It is only in written language that the ‘definition’ or ‘meaning’ of a concept becomes important at all.
Are you relying on some source you can reference here?
My understanding was that writing arose in agrarian empires that had the need for records and which could afford a scribe class. This started off ideographic (or indexical) and naturally evolved towards the more purely symbolic (or alphabetical) with use.
Nomadic folk had oral cultures and little need to keep written records. So they wouldn't have originated any written language system, and only have employed the more generalised symbolism of art, decoration and dress.
I don’t think I’m contradicting anything you’ve said here. I certainly don’t disagree. Some agrarian systems were established from or heavily influenced by nomadic cultures, such as Hebrew and Arabic. So not all of them developed ideographic language, as you say - some of them developed more indexical language systems, pointing to objects/concepts in a performative or actionable structure, rather than the flow of ideas in a static structure.
Do you have a reference for your speculation? I'm skeptical. A little evidence would help.
Yes, if I had evidence, it wouldn’t be speculation...
Definition: degree of distinctness. A statement of the exact meaning of a word.
It may be possible that the leader wherever a spoken-only language occurs might be able to state an exact meaning of a word-concept (I can’t see how else such a ‘definition’ would exist), but surely this would be difficult to enforce in terms of using the concept in everyday language, and would only exist so long as those speaking remember and respect the original statement, and have no need to modify the concept’s use.
Quoting T Clark
When a language is spoken only, the complete meaning of a concept commonly involves human performance: the speaker’s identity and relationship to the listener, volume, vocal inflection, hand and body gestures, objects, etc. A concept’s full meaning would not be encapsulated in vocabulary or grammar, such that it could be determined without use.
Not sure what evidence you’re expecting...