DOYLC

In the last post, univocal, equivocal, and analogous terms were discussed.   It occurred to me afterwards that all of these classes of term presuppose terms that signify concepts.   But what about a term that does not signify any concept?    At first this sounds a bit stupid.   Surely we would not waste our time on terms that do not signify a concept.   However, I have listened to several decades of marketing hype in Information Technology and I think that I have heard terms that do not signify anything - but which have some kind of emotive power. I have tried to look for philosophical sources about terms that signify empty concepts, but have not been able to find any - probably due to the short time I have been able to invest in the search.   This makes me cautious, so I will confine the discussion of empty concepts mostly to data management. First, if a term signifies a concept that can supposit for actual materially existing instances, then the co...

This is a topic which we will probably have to return to in the future, but a start has to be made.   Definitions are inextricably bound up with terms, and one classification of terms   divides them up into Univocal , Equivocal , and Analogous .   Let us briefly review these three classes.    Univocal Term: A terms that has only one meaning.   That is, it signifies only one concept, and thus corresponds to only one definition.   Such a term always has the same intension wherever it is used.     E.g. the term "entomology" signifies the study of insects.   Equivocal Term: A term that has more than one meaning.   That is, it signifies more than one concept, and thus corresponds to more than one definition.   An equivocal term has different intensions when it is used.   E.g. the term "chihuahua" can signify (a) a breed of dog; (b) a state of Mexico.   Analogous Term:  A term that is intended to convey one or mo...

If we look at a data model, is a definition of an entity type automatically produced by listing the attributes of the entity type?  If this were true then a data modeler would not need to produce entity definitions - he or she would simply need to identify and list a sufficient number of attributes.  I have actually heard data modelers being criticized by terminologists for doing just this.  The extent to which such criticism is fair or not is a separate discussion, but the question remains as to whether a list of attributes can suffice as a definition. I do not think that a list of attributes is sufficient based on the recent discussions about concept systems in this blog.  No concept exists in isolation.  Every concept exists in some kind of concept system where it has relationships to other concepts.  At least some of these relationships and/or related concepts have to enter into a definition so that the concept being defined can be located properly in a...