Definitions

Abstract

The term “definition” is used in contexts of two kinds. On the one hand, people speak about definitions of words, e.g., a definition of the word “gram”, a definition of the word “pessimist”, a definition of the word “misanthrope”, etc., on the other, about definitions of certain singular objects, e.g., a definition of the North Pole, definitions of certain sets of objects, e.g., a definition of the set of natural numbers, definitions of certain relations, e.g., a definition of the relation of equality, etc. In these two different kinds of contexts the term “definition” occurs in different meanings. When we speak about a definition of the word “gram” we mean a statement which would make that word comprehensible to a person who understands an amount of words, but does not yet understand the word “gram”. Hence the concept of a definition of a word must include a reference to an amount of words, i.e., a vocabulary, the knowledge of which on the part of the addressee of that definition is assumed and by referring to which we can make the word to be defined comprehensible to the person in question.