definitionism

English

Etymology

From definition +‎ -ism.

Noun

definitionism (uncountable)

1. (philosophy, metaphilosophy) The school of thought that for a theory to be properly explained it is necessary that all concepts used by the theory be well-defined.
   • 1992, William R. LaFleur, Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan, Princeton University Press, page 15, Quoted in 2015, Adam C. Pelser, Robert C. Roberts, 18: Religious value and moral psychology, Tobias Brosch, David Sander (editors), Handbook of Value, Oxford University Press, page 388,

     Instead of logic chopping and the unconnected neat boxes produced by definitionism, ritual provides activities that fuse a wide variety of things that seem otherwise unrelated.

   • 2006, Jack S. Crumley II, A Brief Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, Rowman & Littlefield, page 152:

     Some philosophers have not given up on definitionism.

   • 2007, Karen Neander, “Biological Approaches to Mental Representation”, in Mohan Matthan, Christopher Stephens, editors, Philosophy of Biology, North-Holland: Elsevier, page 561:

     Perhaps definitionism does not work for all complex concepts.

Synonyms

• (school of thought): classical theory of concepts

Derived terms

• social definitionism

See also

• epistemology
• ostensive definition
• rationalism

Anagrams

• misdefinition