Essays on Definition

Juan C. Sager | University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology

Alain Rey

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027223272 (Eur) | EUR 105.00

ISBN 9781556197734 (USA) | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027298621 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

Netlibrary e-Book – Not for resale

ISBN 9780585462455

This collection of essays on definitions, from Plato and Aristotle to modern times, assembles interesting, sometimes less widely known and controversial texts. They examine the subject from the point of view of philosophy which is essential for a theory of terminology seeking to establish the relationship between concepts and terms. These essays deal mainly with theoretical issues but they also consider the practice of defining and therefore serve as background to all manner of studies in terminology. In addition they form a useful complement to the better known discussions of definitions in lexicography.

[Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice, 4] 2000. viii, 257 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/tlrp.4

Table of Contents

Preface | pp. vii–viii

Introduction: Defining Definition

Alain Rey | pp. 1–14

Plato | pp. 15–23

Aristotle | pp. 25–89

Isidoro of Seville | pp. 91–94

Blaise Pascal | pp. 95–117

Benedict de Spinoza | pp. 119–123

John Locke | pp. 125–143

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz | pp. 145–158

George Berkeley | pp. 159–161

Immanuel Kant | pp. 163–171

John Stuart Mill | pp. 173–190

Heinrich Rickert | pp. 191–249

Name Index | pp. 255–256

“Juan Sager’s selective collection of excerpts shows the philosophical roots of contemporary (linguistic) theory of Definition, as well as the intellectual context from which deeply rooted current typologies of definition originated. His eclectic approach raises historically founded questions about the vividness of definitional theory for the philosophy of natural language, cognitive science and pragmatics.”

Paul Sambre, in Pragmatics, March 2001

“The selected texts make for very interesting reading, precisely because they remind us once again of exactly how reductionistic current theoretical views of definitions are in nature once you isolate them from the philosophic traditions from which they have emerged.”

Piet H. Swanepoel, University of South Africa (UNISA), in Lexikos, Vol 13, 2003

“Sager gives the floor to indispensable authors on the debate around definition, and these readings (or rereadings) are not only desirable, they are necessary.”

Jean-Louis Vaxelaire, in Terminology 8:2, 2002

“El libro de Juan C. Sager cubre un vacío histórico que convenía llenar rescatando de los textos orginales de los filósofos las ideas fundamentales que han nutrido y siguen nutriendo la mayoría de los libros léxico, lexicografia, terminologica y semántica.”

M. Teresa Cabre, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

“C'est un ouvrage convaincant et bien documenté avec une importante bibliographie des plus utiles. Nous aimerions en recommender la lecture parce qu'il ouvre d'intéressantes perspectives á tous les traducteurs, terminologues et linguistes, ainsi qu'au étudiants [...].”

André Clas, Université de Montréal

Cited by (11)

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Gillman, Daniel W. & Frank Farance

2011. Theory and Management of Data Semantics. In Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management, Second Edition, ► pp. 1500 ff.

Fóris, Ágota, Nikolett Kékesi & László Kozma

2009. Megjegyzések a terminusok jelentésmeghatározásának módszeréhez. Magyar Terminológia 2:1 ► pp. 99 ff.

Rayan, Sobhi

2009. Nominal Definition in the Writings of Ibn Taymiyya. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 23:2 ► pp. 123 ff.

Abend, Gabriel

2008. The Meaning of ‘Theory’. Sociological Theory 26:2 ► pp. 173 ff.

[no author supplied]

2018. Natural Language and Sub-Languages with Controlled Vocabularies. In Concept Parsing Algorithms (CPA) for Textual Analysis and Discovery [Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics, ], ► pp. 25 ff.

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2018. Concept Science. In Concept Parsing Algorithms (CPA) for Textual Analysis and Discovery [Advances in Computational Intelligence and Robotics, ], ► pp. 103 ff.

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2020. Lexical Semantics for Terminology [Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice, 20],

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