Ostensive definition
An ostensive definition conveys the
Overview
An
So one might say: the ostensive definition explains the use—the meaning—of the word when the overall role of the word in language is clear. Thus if I know that someone means to explain a colour-word to me the ostensive definition "That is called 'sepia' " will help me to understand the word.... One has already to know (or be able to do) something in order to be capable of asking a thing's name. But what does one have to know?[1]
The limitations of ostensive definition are exploited in a famous argument from the
John Passmore states that the term was first defined by the British logician William Ernest Johnson (1858–1931):
"His neologisms, as rarely happens, have won wide acceptance: such phrases as "ostensive definition", such contrasts as those between ... "determinates" and "determinables", "continuants" and "occurrents", are now familiar in philosophical literature" (Passmore 1966, p. 344).
See also
- Comprehension
- Enumerative definition
- Exemplification
- Extensional and intensional definitions
- Intension
- Ostension
Notes
References
- Passmore, John (1966). A Hundred Years of Philosophy (2nd ed.). London: Penguin (1957).
- ISBN 0-631-23127-7.
- ISBN 9780812691016. (in particular Sect.11)
Further reading
- Chad Engelland (ed.) Ostension: Word Learning and the Embodied Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2014