Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Empty Labels - Less Wrong

16 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 February 2008 11:50PM

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Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 15 February 2008 06:58:08AM 9 points [-]

I am not talking about nominalism at all, actually; nor Aristotle's notion of horismos which is often translated as "definition" but better translated as "essence".

Rather, I am speaking about the Aristotle-influenced view (still held by many Traditional Rationalists today) of what we would call "categories" or "definitions", in terms of individually necessary and together sufficient properties for membership; and of what may be inferred from these by way of what we would call "syllogisms". (Aristotle's sullogismos being more properly translated as "deduction".)

In particular, it is the idea of categorization-based inference as a matter of logically valid deduction, that has given rise to the notion of being able to define a term "any way you like"; this is an Aristotelian notion but not necessarily Aristotle's notion.

I should note that, being unwilling to put up with Aristotle's writing style, my understanding of his work is derived from secondary sources such as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Sorry, but seriously, bleah.

Anyone who did not understand the above comment, my advice is not to bother.