About the Definitions of Words

Philosophy is primarily a matter of words. Many philosophical disputes are simply disagreements about the definitions of certain words, and if the participants could just agree on their definitions, their argument would disappear. But philosophy is more than just squabbling about definitions - it's squabbling about ideas. The reason we spend so much time defining words is because we almost always need words in order to use ideas.

1. Words do not have inherent or objective meanings! We're just crafting meanings for our words to suit our purposes. Thus, when we define a word, we are not reaching out to the cosmos in some kind of celestial act of discovery. Instead, we are creating a mental tool for ourselves in our own minds. Obviously words are symbols.

2. Thus, it's silly to ask what a word really means. It doesn't mean anything beyond what we make it mean. Likewise, the definition of a word can't be right or wrong; only useful or confusing. Also, we should be careful when claiming that a word means something "by definition." To be clear, we should say the word means something "according to our agreed definition."

3. This doesn't imply that we can pick any old meaning for our words at whim, like Humpty-Dumpty. Instead we must craft our definitions carefully to make sure they serve our needs and help us achieve our goals.

1. We should not redefine a word in a way that greatly differs from that word's common use. You can't point to a chair and say "That's a table now." It would just be confusing and serve no purpose.

2. We should not redefine a word in a way that's counter-intuitive or invent a word using commonly recognized roots in counter-intuitive ways. (like "intentionality" as used in philosophy of mind)

3. If we're specially defining words, we can limit ourselves to just one definition, which is a great advantage. Common use very often gives multiple definitions to a word, and this is a very frequent source of misunderstanding.

4. Sometimes instead of redefining a particular word in a counter-intuitive way, the philosopher should simply choose a different word to redefine.

5. When you redefine a word, you can't apply that effect retroactively in an attempt to make other people say things they didn't mean.

6. One person can assign a meaning to a word, but that scarcely does any good unless other people understand and agree with that definition. The value of words is that they help people exchange information and work together harmoniously.

7. We don't generally define words arbitrarily, but instead we define our words in order to achieve goals. And those goals all reach up toward the root goal of species survival. So if we can show that a definition of a word contributes to our species survival, then we can say that definition is useful and good.