Dr. Derek Ball “Disagreeing about Definition” 15.2.17
Many disagreements in philosophy, and some in ordinary life, are about issues that it is natural to think of as matters of definition. (Can there be same-sex marriage? Is free will compatible with determinism? Is so-called “conceptual art” really art?) Philosophical accounts of definition distinguish nominal definitions (which either stipulatively introduce a new meaning for a word, or describe an extant meaning) and real definitions (which give an account of the essence of a thing). I argue that ordinary and philosophical disputes about definition do not fit neatly into either of these categories and propose an alternative account.
July 12th 2022, R 1066e (Unter den Linden 6), HU Hauptgebäude Organisation: Thomas Meyer (meyertho@hu-berlin.de)