 Well, we're still talking about defining. And we had different kinds of definitions with the last chapter, or the last video I should say, same chapter, the last video. And that's all well and good. But you can still provide a kind of definition, but not do a very good job. And when you're providing definitions, there are still rules you have to follow. You can't just stipulate anything as a definition. So here's my definition of square. It's something. No, that's not going to do it. You've got to follow some steps. You've got to follow some rules to provide a good definition, whether it's through extension or intention. So the first rule to follow is to define literally. Now what this means is to define literally as opposed to say something metaphorically. If you're going to define, define in terms of what's true or false. Not, you know, artistic expression. Now, I'm not trying to, you know, downplay the importance of artistic expression. I'm not. But I will say this, if you don't understand the literal definition, the artistic definition or the artistic expression isn't going to do you much good. We want to talk about what's true or what's false in terms of what's true or what's false. We need to talk about metaphor, or, you know, most of artistic expression. Talk about what's, you know, literally false, right? So what? Democracy. An artistic or metaphorical definition of democracy is what? The hope of the common man. I mean, maybe, kind of, you know, it's not literally true because there's lots of hopes for the common man. Or, I don't know, maybe lots of ways we can start defining artistically democracy. But instead, we want to give a literal definition. We want to say what's, you know, what's true or what's false about democracy. So what? A working definition of democracy is probably a little bit rough, but a former government where laws and decisions or policies of the government are decided upon by popular vote. It's kind of a stab at a working definition of democracy. I'm sure there are political science majors out there who will correct me very quickly. But, you know, that's something different than the hope of the common man, or government led by the blind, or, you know, there's all kinds of ways we can start artistically describing democracy. We want to avoid that. We want a literal definition as opposed to metaphorical. The next rule of defining that we have is to have a cognitive definition as opposed to an emotive or an emotional one. That means, you know, trying to keep the emotion out of it, right? We want to describe what the thing is as opposed to how it makes us feel, or how we're trying to make the other person feel. So, you know, sticking with the definition of democracy again, right? A former government whereby decisions, policies, laws are determined by popular vote. Okay, you can throw some emotionally charged words in there, right? So the former government whereby most important and vital decisions of society are left up to the ones who are least qualified and least trained. You know, it's kind of a pessimistic view of democracy, or maybe another version. The former government whereby the most important decisions are determined by those who have the greatest stake. Okay, I mean, these might both sort of be literally true. Okay, but they've got lots of emotionally charged words loaded in there. We want to avoid emotion when we're defining these things. I'm not trying to say emotion is bad. I'm not. Emotion has its place. Emotion is good, right? But when you try to reason, you know, these kind of emotionally charged words can really make things more difficult. And, you know, by the way, just because something's emotionally charged doesn't mean, you know, that you're, you've accurately understood it, right? In fact, being emotionally charged tends to inhibit one's ability to comprehend what's going on. Just get too wrapped up in how you feel about it. So second rule, a cognitive definition as opposed to an emotive one, or emotional one. The third rule for defining is that the definition should be referential as opposed to self-referential, right? So when you refer, you refer to something else. You're defining in terms of something else. A self-referential definition doesn't tell you anything. So when we talk about a democracy, when we say it's a former government, that, you know, or decisions, laws, policies are determined by popular vote. Okay, well, nowhere in that definition did I use the word democracy again. I've defined democracy in terms of something else. A self-referential definition would be something like what? Democracy, well, it's a democratic government. Well, yeah, but that doesn't tell anything. When you define, you shouldn't use this, you know, the term that you're trying to define, right? The definine should not be the definindum, right? So yeah, this rule. When you're defining, defined, or referential definition, defining in terms of something else, rather than that one thing. All right, so the next rule of defining is that definition should be precise as opposed to vague. A vague definition includes too many things. A precise definition narrows it down. So let's return to our little example of democracy. And a vague definition of democracy is a former government where decisions are made. That's way broad. That's way too broad. One way of thinking about making definitions very precise is, say, let's deal with the terms of lexical definitions, where the genus and the species. Well, you know, a very vague definition wouldn't have a very good deferentia, right? So a system of government. Okay, well, that takes care of the genus. But then a vague definition wouldn't separate that definindum from other things of its kind. So just broadly speaking, in terms of governments, we have what? Government by the many, right? Democracy. Decisions are made by popular vote. You have what? oligarchies, where decisions are made by very few. You have a dictatorship or monarchy, right? Where decisions are made by the one. And there's even, you know, versions, there's even differences between, say, dictatorships and monarchies, right? We can talk about that too. So you've got all these different kinds of governments. Well, a vague definition wouldn't differentiate between them, right? You want to define a democracy, we want to make sure we narrow that down. So when you're defining, make sure your definition is precise. It doesn't include too many things, right? As opposed to vague. Vague definitions include way too many. They don't have a good enough differential. It's maybe a way of thinking about it. Defining univocally. Strictly speaking, it's probably not when you're defining that you need to keep track of this term. It's when you're reading or writing. So univocally means that you're using one defininums for the defininum. And believe it or not, it's really easy to start swapping out defininums unconsciously. Now this is largely going to take place in a paragraph or a paper when the author, it's mostly unintentionally, author will start using a different, different irons at one point than another. So we could talk about democracy as a popular form of government. We're all a fan of democracy. Therefore, we're going to be a fan of the Democratic Party. Well, I mean, it's true that the Democratic Party is in favor of democracy, but yeah, that doesn't really distinguish Democratic Party from, you know, Libertarian, Green Party, you know, Republican Party really doesn't distinguish. They all want to appeal to democracy in some way, shape, or form. And when you're reading a passage, you want to be careful about, you know, want to keep your radar off or when people unintentionally and just kind of quickly slide into a different defininums. So you can have a Democratic former government not necessarily have a Democratic Party or the Democratic Party, right? So these are two different things. You're at the definition of democracy is different than the definition for the Democratic Party. That's just one example, right? You could be a favor, you know, you could say, well, republic's a good thing. Therefore, I'm in favor of the Republican Party. Well, no, I mean, this, I mean, that's fine. You could be in favor of both, but it's not like the Democrats are necessarily the Democratic Party is necessarily trying to get rid of the public. They're not trying to do that. So you got to be careful when you're reading and when you're writing to keep track of one defininums for the definitum, to use the defininums for that word, for that term, once and stick with it with the entire paper when you're writing. And when you're reading, keep your radar off for when people kind of accidentally slip into a different term. And I said this is this rule defined univocally as opposed to ambiguously. By the way, ambiguity and vagueness are two different things. Vagnus is when your definition is too broad and includes way too many things. Ambiguity is when you kind of switch definitions, right? You have two different definitions or more for the same term. So define univocally as opposed to ambiguously. All right, last rule for defining. Define affirmatively as opposed to negatively. Now I'm not talking about emotions again. We already talked about defining cognitively as opposed to emotively. What I'm talking about here is defining in terms of what the thing is as opposed to what the thing is not. Now I know, I know we just got finished with a kind of defininums called exclusion. And we had antonyms and we had species similars. Right, that's not a defininums according to this rule. You're right. Now if you recall, I said we need to define it by exclusion to define not just by exclusion. You know, it can be helpful to start with an antonym. It kind of works like a synonym, really. In some ways, and it's not always useful because there are not always antonyms for every defininum. And species similars, again, you're not defining in terms of species similars. Although, you know, related to ambiguity earlier, having, you know, having talking about this defining by exclusion with species similars right from the beginning to remove ambiguity right from the beginning, that can be helpful. Right, that can be helpful to say, I want to talk about this thing, not these other things which are often used for this right here. But it's strictly speaking is not a definition. If you just define by exclusion, you probably haven't done a job. Probably haven't defined. In fact, I'll be willing to bet that you haven't. So when you've defined, right, defined in terms of what the thing is. So, you know, in the case of democracy, right, you know, we have, well, you say it's not, it's not governing by the one. Right, that's a start, but that still doesn't tell us what democracy is. Even if you say it's not rule by the one, it's not rule by the few. Right, there's still more to go. There's still lots of different ways you can have a government. Even a government through more or less popular vote, maybe if you like restrict the number of people who can vote. So only landowners or only people who, what, only people who live in a particular area or something like this. Right, there's all kinds of ways we can still have rule by more than a few people and still not be a democracy. So defining by, only by exclusion doesn't do it. You've got to define affirmatively, you can define in terms of what the thing is. So define again, a form of government through popular vote. You know, a working definition, there's probably better definitions, but a working definition. That tells us what it is as opposed to what it's not. Well, it's not an oligarchy and it's not a monarchy. There we go. No, that doesn't do it. So that's, these are our rules. Define literally as opposed to metaphorically, artistically. Define cognitively as opposed to emotively. Define referentially as opposed to self-referentially. Define precisely as opposed to vaguely. Define univocally as opposed to ambiguously. And finally define affirmatively as opposed to negatively or negation. Now, so I want to point out, right, it's possible to define in terms of one of the kinds that we talked about with the last video. You can have a lexical definition that is vague. You can have a synonym, right? That's what? Emotive or metaphorical, sort of. So when you're looking at these definitions, not only when you're defining, right, not only to make sure you stick or you try to not stick with, but you define as well as you can with all the different kinds of definitions, but make sure you stick with these rules. You've got to follow these rules. So when you're reading passages, keep an eye out not only for the kinds of definitions, but you want to make sure that these definitions are adhering to these rules. If they're not, right, there's a problem here. There's a problem with comprehension of the terms. And if you got a problem comprehending the terms right from the beginning, that can and probably will mess everything else up. So keep an eye out not only for kind of definition, but whether they appropriately follow the rules.