Definition
A statement of what a thing is, or of what a word means; a basic tool of logic and science.
Works to read
- Statesman by Plato, c. 360 BC · Great Books
- Charmides, Lysis and Laches by Plato, c. 390s BC · Great Books
- Meno by Plato, c. 385 BCE · Great Books
- Theaetetus by Plato, c. 369 BC · Great Books
- Sophist by Plato, c. 360 BC · Great Books
- Elements of Chemistry by Antoine Lavoisier, 1789 · Great Books
- The Canon of Medicine, Book I by Ibn Sina (Avicenna), c. 1025
- Sermons on Several Occasions and Primitive Physick by John Wesley, 1746-1790
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, written 1920–1921; first published (English) 1924
- On Computable Numbers and Computing Machinery by Alan Turing, 1936 / 1950
- A History of Philosophy, Vol. I: Greece and Rome by Frederick Copleston, 1946
Passages
From the texts
Definition is a 'thesis' or a 'laying something down', since the arithmetician lays it down that to be a unit is to be quantitatively indivisible; but it is not a hypothesis, for to define what a unit is is not the same as to affirm its existence.
— Aristotle, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, Topics and Sophistical Refutations
For the original definition is always more of a definition, and not the later one; and in a series in which the first term has not the required character, the next has not it either.
— Aristotle, Metaphysics
Verified quotations
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Passages are verified quotations from the library that use one of these words: definition, define, defined. Sentences under “From the texts” are copied word for word from the full texts in this library. Read each in its context on the work's page.