Definitions; Necessary &

Sufficient Conditions
Definitions
 A definition is a statement that makes clear the meaning of a
word, a phrase, a concept.

 A definition will have two parts:

 The definiendum: The term being defined.
 The definiens: The terms doing the defining.
Definitions
 A definition is a statement that makes clear the meaning of a
word, a phrase, a concept.

 A definition will have two parts:

 The definiendum: The term being defined.
 The definiens: The terms doing the defining.

 Example: “A dog is a domesticated carnivorous mammal”

 “Dog”: the definiendum.
 “Domesticated carnivorous mammal”: the definiens.
Exercise
 Think of definitions for:
 Human being
 Water
 The seven deadly sins
 Bachelor
Exercise
 Think of definitions for:
 Human being
 Water
 The seven deadly sins
 Bachelor

 As we can see, we give different varieties of definitions.

 But, all definitions concern the semantic content of a term. That is,
the terms meaning or what the term refers to (those things relating
to what makes the term true).
Definitions can be too Wide or too Narrow

 A definition should “capture” precisely the things that a term

being defined refers to.

 That means a definition must not be too wide nor too narrow.

 Narrow Definition: doesn’t capture enough.

 Wide Definition: captures too much.
Example

 Picture = Something that looks like something else.

 Is this a good definition? Think in terms of it being

wide/narrow.
Example

 Picture = Something that looks like something else.

 Is this a good definition? Think in terms of it being

wide/narrow.

 The definition is too wide. There are many things that looks
like something else that are not pictures. Thus, the definition
“captures” too much.
What about…
 Picture = Something flat that looks like something else.

 Is this definition any better?

What about…
 Picture = Something flat that looks like something else.

 Is this definition any better?

 Still too wide. What about mirrors?

 Possibly also too narrow: Do cubist pictures really look like
the things they are meant to depict?
 Example
 Cat = a domesticated animal.
 Is this a good definition?
 Example
 Cat = a domesticated animal.
 Is this a good definition?

 Too narrow: what about wild cats? (Narrow because it

excludes these).
 Too wide: what about other domesticated animals? (Without
more information, this definition includes dogs, hamsters,
parrots, budgies, etc.)
Necessary & Sufficient Conditions

 To make sure a definition is neither too wide nor too narrow,

we should make sure the definition states the necessary and
sufficient conditions of the thing being defined.

 In this way, the definition will include only those things which
the term refers to and it will exclude all those things that the
term doesn’t refer to.
 Necessary Conditionz
 X is a necessary condition for Y if there can be no Y without
the occurrence of X.

 Example: Being a mammal is necessary for being a human.

(There cannot be a human that is not a mammal.)
 Example: Being a woman is a necessary condition for being a
bride. (There cannot be a bride that is not a woman.)
Exercise

 Think of two examples of X and Y where X is a necessary condition for

Y.

• "Air is necessary for human life."

• "Human beings must have air to live."
 Showing not necessary
 To show that X is not a necessary condition for Y, we just
need to find a case where Y is present but not X.

 Example: Being male is necessary for being a teacher.

 This is obviously false because females can also be

teachers.
 Sufficient Conditions
 X is a sufficient condition for Y if the occurrence of X
guarantees the occurrence of Y.
 In other words, when it is impossible to have X without Y.
 Sufficient Conditions
 X is a sufficient condition for Y if the occurrence of X
guarantees the occurrence of Y.
 In other words, when it is impossible to have X without Y.
 Example: Having a ticket is sufficient for being allowed to enter
the stadium.
 Example: Being a square is sufficient for having four sides
(notice having four sides is not sufficient for being a square).
 Example: Being a woman is sufficient for being a human.
Exercise
 Is getting good grades at university sufficient for getting a good
job?

 Is being a triangle sufficient for having three sides?

 Is being a bachelor sufficient for being a man? (we are not

talking about bachelor’s degrees)

 Is being a man sufficient for being a bachelor?

 Is going to LKF sufficient for having a good time?

Exercise
 Is getting good grades at university sufficient for getting a good
job?
 No. Might get good grades and not get a good job.

 Is being a triangle sufficient for having three sides?

 Yes. If there is a triangle is must have three sides.

 Is being a bachelor sufficient for being a man? (we are not talking
about bachelor’s degrees)
 Yes. When there is a bachelor he must be a man.

 Is being a man sufficient for being a bachelor?

 No. Being a man does not make you a bachelor.

 Is going to LKF sufficient for having a good time?

 No. You might have a bad time in LKF.
 Showing not sufficient

 To show that X is not sufficient for Y we just need to find

cases where X occurs but not Y.
 Necessary & Sufficient Conditions
 Given any two conditions X and Y, there are four ways in which
they might be related to each other:

a. X is neither necessary nor sufficient for Y.

b. X is necessary but not sufficient for Y.
c. X is sufficient but not necessary for Y.
d. X is both (jointly) necessary and sufficient for Y.
Examples
 Smelling good is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a
flower. (Not necessary because there are flowers that smell bad,
not sufficient because there are things other than flowers that
smell good.)

 Being human is necessary but not sufficient for being a man.

(Necessary because you cannot be a man without being human,
not sufficient because you can be a human but not be a man.)
Examples
 Being a square is sufficient but not necessary for having four
sides. (Sufficient because squares must be four sided, but not
necessary because four sided shapes are not all squares.)

 Being an unmarried man is both necessary and sufficient for

being a bachelor. (Necessary because to be a bachelor you must
be an unmarried man, sufficient because being an unmarried
man makes you a bachelor.)
Applying this to Definitions
 Necessary and sufficient conditions enable us to make sure a
definition is not too wide or narrow.

 Again Consider: “Cat = domesticated animal”

 Too narrow. There can be cats that are not domesticated. So being
domesticated is not necessary for being a cat.
 Definitions that are too narrow do not provide necessary conditions.

 Too wide. There can be domesticated animals that are not cats. So
being a domesticated animal is not sufficient for being a cat.
 Definitions that are too wide do not provide sufficient conditions.
 Now Consider…
 “Vixen = female fox”
 This is neither too wide nor too narrow.

 Not too narrow. There cannot be a vixen that is not a female

fox. So, being a female fox is necessary for being a vixen.
 Not too wide. There are not female foxes that are not vixens.
So, being a female fox is sufficient for being a vixen.
 Exercise

 Look at the sheets and answer the questions.

 Recap Definitions so Far
 Definiendum
 Definiens
 Narrow definition
 Wide definition
 X is necessary for Y.
 X is sufficient for Y.
 When a definition is too wide it means it does not provide a what condition?
 Sufficient.
 When a definition is too narrow it does not provide a what condition?
 Necessary.
Definitions Continued: Evaluations & Types

 We have seen that we can evaluate whether a definition is

good by looking at whether it is:

 Too wide or too narrow.

 But we may ask more questions.

Circular Definitions
 We can also ask whether a definition is circular (and therefore
uninformative).
 Consider:
 “A teacher is a person who teaches.”
 “A jigger is a person who jigs.”

 These definitions are not informative because they don’t really

explain what the word means.
 To do better we would need to “unpack” the verbs (i.e.
“teaches” “jigs”) to know what the word they are supposed to
define means—this would require us to use different terms.
 “A teacher is a person who does what a teacher does.”

 This is similar to the previous example, but shows more

obviously the problem.
 This is a bad definition because it is circular.
 It uses the word being defined to define the word (it uses the
definiendum in the definiens).
 This means that it doesn’t provide us with new information about
the term being defined.
 Circular Definition: A definition is circular if the defining terms
contain explicitly or implicitly the term being defined.
 Consider:
 “Time is duration”

 Why is this circular?

 Duration just is a length of time.
 That means, we need to know what time is in the first place to
understand the definition.
 That is not what a good definition does!
 Contrast
 “Singer = a person who produces musical sounds with his
voice”

 This is much better because the term ‘singer’ is not implied

in any of the defining terms. We can learn what a singer is
from this definition if we know what the individual terms in
the definition means independently of knowing what
“singer” means.
 Evaluating Definitions
 So, two ways to evaluate definitions are to ask:

i. Is the definition too wide or too narrow?

ii. Is the definition circular?

 If the definition suffers from any of these problems, then it

has a problem.
Types of Definitions

 We are going to look at three types of definition:

1. Reportive

2. Stipulative

3. Precising
 Reportive Definitions
 Reportive definition: reports the existing meaning of a term.

 These are also known as descriptive or lexical definitions.

 We take a word and “report” what it means.
 Here issues of the definition being too wide or too narrow
arise, because there is an existing use which we can compare
the definition to.
 Consider
 “Bravery = not running away from danger”

 Is this definition too wide or too narrow?

 Too wide: Stupid (but not brave) people might also not run away from
danger.
 Too narrow: Some brave people might run from danger, when they
consider it appropriate.
 We know this because we have an idea of what bravery means and
when it does and doesn’t apply.
 In other words, we want to give a reportive definition and we know
this attempt fails.
 A reportive definition can also be simply wrong:

 “A university is a place where people go to do their

laundry.”

 This is just simply wrong as a definition of a university. It

is neither necessary nor sufficient for a place to be a
university.
 A better example:

 “Cloud = Visible mass of condensed watery vapour floating

above the ground.”

 This reports what a cloud is, and doesn’t appear (at least to
me!) to be too wide or too narrow.
 Stipulative Definitions

 Stipulative Definition: assigns (or stipulates) a new meaning to

a term, whether or not that term already has an established use.
These definitions don’t report the existing meaning of a term.

 We may want to create a new definition for a word, or to

stipulate what we mean when we are using the term in a non-
standard sense.
 Example
 From now on, I will call all students, teachers, and staff at Lingnan,
“Lingnanians”.

 I have stipulated how I will use the term “Lingnanian”.

 “Normativism = any theory that holds that beliefs are essentially

subject to a normative requirement.”
 Here a stipulative definition is given to introduce a technical notion
in a subject area. This is useful if I want to keep using the term
“normativism” in an essay, for example.
 Notice: Issues with whether a stipulative definition is
either too wide or too narrow do not arise. This is
because they introduce a new meaning of a term, so
there is no previous linguistic practice to compare the
definition to.
 Precising Definition

 Precising Definition: Something between a reportive definition

and a stipulative definition. It aims to make the existing meaning
of a term more precise.

 So a precising definition is reportive in the sense that it does not

deviate from the current linguistic practice, but stipulative in the
sense that it assigns some specific conditions to the definition to
make it more precise.
 Example

 “A full-time worker is someone who works 40 hours per week”

 We know from linguistic practice that full-time workers may work

40 hours per week, but they also may work around 30-50.
 What this precising definition does it make more precise what me
mean when we say full-time worker, but without deviating from
our ordinary understanding of what a full-time worker is.
 This could be useful in company policy, when a contract says “as
a full-time worker you will work 40 hours per week”.
 Exercise

 Are these definitions reportive, stipulative, or precising?

 Tall Person = Any person over 180cm.

 Bachelor = An unmarried man.
 Let’s call the new species discovered a “Dragofarian”
Extensional and Intensional Definitions

 Extensional Definitions: define a term with reference to

its extension (the things to which it refers).

 Intensional Definitions: define a term by its intension or

meaning (by specifying the conditions for its application).
Compare
 “The Seven Deadly Sins = pride, greed, envy, anger,
lust, gluttony, sloth.”

 “Triangle = A three-sided shape whose interior angles

sum to 180 degrees.”

 Which is intensional and which extensional?

Answer

 Seven deadly sins definition is extensional because it lists

the things to which the term refers.

 Triangle is intensional because it gives the conditions of

application for when we can use the term “triangle”.
 Exercise

 Define “prime number” both intensionally and extensionally.

Look online if you want.
 POINTS FROM THIS SESSION

 Definiendum  Reportive definition

 Definiens  Stipulative definition
 Narrow definition  Precising definition
 Wide definition
 Circular definition
 How can we evaluate a
definition?