 Well, let's start with defining terms. I'm not going to launch right into propositional logic. If you want that, you'll have to wait for a few videos. Now I like to start with defining terms. It's useful to try to explain the rest. You have to know what you're talking about before you can start making judgments, or even before you can start using reason, or you can start using logic. So let's do it with defining terms instead. So term is, you know, it's a word, right? It doesn't use words all the time. And these words are at least supposed to have meanings behind them. The definition, the concept. Now what we're going to do is learn ways to define terms. Now I don't mean just going to the dictionary and looking at the definition. You know, you can go to a dictionary and look up a definition. It doesn't mean you understand what the term is supposed to mean. It certainly doesn't mean that your audience is going to understand what the term is supposed to mean. So instead, what I want to teach you to do is to learn how to understand the term for yourself. I'm not saying a dictionary is a bad thing. I'm just saying it's not enough. If you want to learn how to define, you'll take these steps. Not just simply walking over to whatever dictionary is on your bookshelf. And you know, especially if you want to explain to your audience what you mean. Maybe it's somebody that you're speaking to or writing to or say papers. You should take these steps as opposed to a single sentence from a dictionary. Now to kind of get started with this, I'm going to introduce two terms. Definitum is the first one. And definitum is just what is being defined, right? It's the word that's being defined. And the definitums is, well, it's what's doing the defining. Now I'm not just simply going to say sentence because it isn't always a sentence that's doing the defining. You'll see what I mean in just a second. So just keep this in mind. Definitum, what's being defined, and the definitums, what's doing the defining. So the first way to start defining is probably the simplest way, although it still leaves room for lots of errors. But hey, at least get started. Right? At least get you started in learning how to define is defining by extension. That's just, you know, the extension is just simply those things to which the term refers. It's just those things to which the term refers. Now you can do this a couple of different ways. You can do this by pointing to different things. That's called defining by demonstration. So if I were to define, say I was trying to define car, maybe I'd take you to the parking lot and point to the cars and say, that's a car, that's a car, that's a car, that's a car. That's defining by demonstration, and it's one kind of defining by extension. Another kind is, you know, suppose you can't point to the thing that you're trying to define, you can define by subclass. So I'd say, okay, you know, I'm trying to define car. So examples of this are the Hyundai Elantra and the Honda Accord and Cadillac. These are different kinds of cars, subclasses of cars. That's what's called defining by subclass. Now this could be a little bit tricky itself because defining by subclass depends upon your audience knowing the meanings of the subclasses that you mentioned. But, you know, it's one of the things that can get you started. Now another way to define is called defining by synonym. Now, I want to be clear, when you define it by extension, when you define it by synonym, this is not sufficient. It's useful, but it's not sufficient. It can help get you started, and it can help your audience kind of ease into the definition you want them to understand. But, you know, at least it gets you started. So if you define it by synonym, you very much provide the words that mean the similar or the same thing. So if I was defining car by synonym, I'd say, what, automobile? Ground vehicle, right, that would be one. You know, ground vehicle is a little, maybe a little bit too broad, but you know, it kind of starts to get in the ballpark. Or even you can use idioms or vernacular, so wheels. Those are my wheels, right. And again, defining by synonym in this way depends upon your audience knowing the meanings of those terms. But, just to emphasize, it can be useful. Now, what's kind of related to defining by synonym is to define by etymology. And this can be useful. It isn't always useful, but it can be useful. You know, words have histories, at least some of them do. And I mean, I guess they all do, in that sense. And some of the histories are more interesting than others. But it can help in trying to understand the term. Words have origins from, some words, especially in English, have origins from multiple languages. And sometimes the meanings of the multiple languages come together to mean something new and different. It isn't always useful, but it can be interesting and kind of fun in some ways. So for instance, again, car. Car is derived from the Latin carus, which it means wagon. So that's kind of an interesting little leap, how we've gone from wagon to car, or the meaning of car gets its meaning from wagon. Kind of in the other direction, from synonym, is defining by antonym. Now, this isn't always useful, or it's not always have opposites. In this case, car really doesn't have an opposite. And it doesn't tell you so much what the word is, but tell you what the word is not. And I want to emphasize, you should not just simply try to define a term by what it's not. That doesn't tell you what it's not, doesn't tell you what it is. But it can be useful. It can be helpful. And plenty of words do have opposites. So if you're defining life, say, well, it's not death. If you're defining hot, you say it's not cold. In this case, no, we don't really have an antonym to car. So it's not really going to work. But keep in mind when you are trying to define terms, especially maybe as kind of an example of antonym is defining the extension of antonym. So if you're trying to define justice, you might point to unjust actions as a way of saying, well, it's clearly not this, or it's clearly not murders, clearly not stealing, it's clearly not corruption. That can help put the term somewhere in the ballpark, but it's certainly not sufficient. And related to this, maybe, is what's called, or what I call confused cases. So these confused cases can be instances where something maybe kind of sort of looks like the term, but is not. There's going to be an important difference. This might be more important when you're really trying to specify the term to get, you know, to delineate it from some of these confused instances. So, you know, something for car, a confused case for car would be the El Camino. No, the El Camino is not a car, it's a truck. It has some appearance of a car, okay, but it's not a car, it's a truck. Now, before we move on to the next kind of defining, I want to introduce another term, genus. Now, genus is the kind of thing that it is, right, the kind of thing. So consider this. So what do we have here? They look different. These things look different from each other. Got some red, some leaves of red, and you got some leaves of green, then you even have just needles. Now, despite the fact that these all look different, there are differences from these three things, they're nevertheless, they have something in common. There's a kind here, and the kind is tree. These are all trees. I've got maple, oak, and spruce, but maple, oak, and spruce are still all trees. So the kind, the genus, is tree. Or even look at this. So we've got three kinds of ivies or vines, depending on how you want to describe them. Again, they look different. We've got different shades of green for the leaves. You've got different shapes for the leaves and how they cluster on the ivy itself. Now that they're all different from each other, but they're still ivy, right? Ivy is the genus. Ivy is the kind of thing that it is. And here we have, again, some significant differences from these three things. Color of the leaves, shape of the leaves, right? But nevertheless, they all have something, they all have a kind. They all have something in common. They're bushes. And you know, even ivies and trees and bushes, they all have something in common. That's plant. So tree is the kind for the maple, the oak, and the spruce. And ivy is the kind or the genus for those three kinds of ivy. And the genus here is bush. And even those kinds, those genuses, they each have, they all have one genus and that's plant. So that's genus. That's the kind of thing that it is. Next is differentiate. So, you know, I'm returning back to the trees here. Each of these is tree. They all have something the same, but they also have a difference from each other. So the maple leaves are red, at least right now, they're red. And their shape is different from the oak and the spruce. And the spruce doesn't really have leaves, it has needles. The spruce has, you know, so it's supposed to be just focus on the spruce real quick, right? The difference that the spruce has from the others, what makes the spruce what it is, is that it has needles. It also grows in a conical shape, whereas the oak and the maple grow, you know, they have kind of in the mushroom shape, rather they have the straight trunk and then the branches and leaves are kind of grouped at the top, where the spruce is conical. The branches also are called worlsome. They kind of spiral out. Now these differences that the spruce has, that's the differential. That's the differential, what makes the spruce different from others of its kind. So this brings us to defining by species. The species is when you put the genus and the differential together. So when you put the genus and the differential together. So if we were to define car, if we were to define car by species, well first we need to figure out its genus. What is this genus? Maybe you attempted to say vehicle. Vehicle might be too far up, too far up in abstraction, right? Because vehicles include planes and trains and boats, right? These are all vehicles. So maybe just like one step up for genus for car. What would that be? Probably something like automobile, right? Automobile. And that basically means ground transportation. So that's the genus for car is automobile. Okay, that's great. That's great. But we're not done yet. We're not defining. We haven't defined car by species yet, because we haven't identified its differential. So what other vehicles are there? To think about differential, to think about other things in the kind, but are nevertheless different. So what? Trucks, vans, buses. These are all different things within the genus of automobile. What's going to make a car different from a truck? Well a truck has an open bed, whereas a car does not. Its storage space, if it has one, is enclosed. So that's one thing. What about, oh I don't know, what makes a car different from a van? So vans, or let's start with SUV, right? What makes a car different from an SUV? Well an SUV has three rows of seats, whereas a car has at most two. So we're narrowing down its differentiate. So if it has a storage space that's enclosed and a car has only one to two rows of seats, what about maybe from, well actually that kind of covers it right now. At least it covers a lot and it gets you along the way. So here's at least an attempt at defining a car by a species. It's an automobile with one to two rows of seats and if it has a storage space that's enclosed. Now defining by species is a really handy skill. If you can knock off a genus and differentiate for a thing, say if you're with a group of people who try to understand the term, that really helps. I mean if you have that skill, you'll be able to describe more and understand more and communicate more than probably other people in the room. Now notice something here. I mean that's going to get us started with defining terms, but I want you to notice something here. I've given you a series of steps for defining and we've got four or five steps here or something like that. And if you complete these steps, say you're doing a paper, if you're completing these steps, you can, depending upon the complexity of the word and how brief you want to be, you can give a nice solid definition of a term and anywhere from 100 to 300 words. If it's a really complicated concept, say if you're doing something in philosophy or mathematics or science or something in history, you can spend, I mean I've seen people spend the solid three pages at least defining a term, defining a term. And especially if you're dealing in something like linguistics or you're trying to do etymology, you're really going to spend a long time defining a term. But for a typical academic paper for an undergraduate, if you follow these steps, you can define a term in anywhere from 100 to 300 words. That's anywhere from a nice full paragraph to a page. And I have yet to see a paper in the humanities that didn't require defining at least three terms. So these five to ten page papers that you have to write become a little bit less difficult. And this is not just baloney. Making clear the term that you're using is very important work. Most people don't even bother with it and just presume the audience knows what they're talking about. And then sometimes what happens when there's, you know, this, when people don't bother defining the terms, they want to talk about two different things, which can happen very easily because a single word in English can have a variety of different meanings. If you don't believe me, start looking up in the dictionary. Look at the word innocent. You'll be surprised how many definitions there are. And, you know, it's etymology, how it started. So, um, just, you know, just practice this. Next time you have a paper, sit down and try to define the term. Not just by giving a single, so if you ever have a paperist define this term and like, how am I supposed to fill up a whole page doing that? Well, now you know how. Because I bet you've gone to the dictionary, you find a single sentence and oh, well, that's that. No. Demonstrate to your audience, and specifically your professor, that you really know what you're talking about by following these steps. So, you know, we've had, you know, we've taken a look at different ways of defining. Let's have a little practice at recognizing different kinds of definitions. So, you see here, there's no plant means something such as a tree, a flower, a vine, or cactus. So, what kind of definition is this? Now, even just looking at the sentence, you know, bear with me. If you, if you can recognize it right away, just bear with me. You know, go through the thought process because sometimes that can be useful in and of itself, right? Um, you know, the first step is to identify the definines versus the definindum. Right. Well, you know, having the quotation mark right there, that kind of easily identifies the definindum as well as the phrase means. And so, in English is nice and convenient where you have one word, then means, and then a phrase that follows. What, what that means is that, what follows means is what's, is the definines and what precedes means is definindum. So, with this phrase, we have a series. What was the rest of the sentence we have a series, a tree, a flower, a vine, or a cactus. So, this is a definition by extension. Now, here's a question. We have two kinds of definition by extension. A definition by demonstration or definition by subclass. Subclass. It's definition by subclass. I didn't take you to a garden and point to different plants. That would be definition by demonstration. Instead, I listed off a bunch of different kinds of plants. So, neophyte means beginner. Now, again, you have to identify the definines and the definindum. And, you know, means is really simple. You know, really helps us point it out. So, beginner is the definines. So, how is this definition carried out? Well, notice it's a single word. It's a single word. Well, that means that it's a definition by synonym. It's a definition by synonym. Okay, so here we have a universe originates from the Latin word universes, which means whole or entire. So, what kind of definition is this? So, we have, we don't have means, right? We don't have means. Instead, we have this word originates from. Well, that tells us where the word comes from. Well, that's a definition by etymology. That's a definition by etymology. That one's a pretty simple one too. Now, what's kind of interesting about this, I kind of want to point this out. You know, you have an idea in mind what universe means, but you don't mean whole or entire. So, this gives you kind of a clue as to what's going on, or it's history, the history of the word universe. It gives us a clue as to how it has its meaning. So, suppose I do this. A dog means this and this and this. So, what kind of definition have I given? Well, I haven't, I don't have any written phrase at all. Instead, what I'm doing is I'm just providing pictures, right? Instances, examples. Well, that's another kind of definition by extension. But this case, what I've done is I've given to particular instances of dogs, well, that's a definition by demonstration. That's a definition by demonstration. Let's try another one. Let's say dog means a mammal that is domesticated carnivorous with a snout and a cute sense of smell that barks, whines, or howls. That's a pretty long phrase. Well, you know, so again, identify the definites and the definitum, right? The definitum is dog and we have means and then we have the long phrase. What's happening here, right? So, look at the meanings of the terms. You have mammal, domesticated carnivorous, snout, cute sense of smell, barks, whines, or howls, right? Mammals pretty broad, right? So, domesticated carnivorous, snout, and all that. But, you know, the broadest of those terms, you know, mammals, reptiles, and fish can all be domesticated carnivorous and snout, right? That sort of thing. Or, and there are other mammals that are not. Now, so what's happening here is the word mammal is providing the genus, is providing the genus. And, you know, domesticated carnivorous, snout, cute sense of smell, right? That differentiates this mammal from other mammals. Say a mammal that is domesticated, carnivorous with a long tail, a sense of balance, a cute hearing, sight, and smell that either meows or purrs. Well, that's a different differentia. So, this is a genus and differentia, so this means that this is a definition by species, by species. Honesty is not lying. So, I don't even have means here, right? Just, but the, you know, the definite, the definite of is honesty. And what I said is, well, it's not lying, right? It's not lying. Well, that's, again, this is not sufficient, right? You should not try to define merely by this way. But this is, this is a definition by antonym. I said it's not lying, or, you know, a particular instance, anyway, of an antonym. So, this is, this is a definition by antonym. So, I've just taken you through a few exercises, right? I've just given a little practice trying to point to a particular instance as a defining. But you should keep practicing. You should keep practicing. Get real familiar with these steps. And I don't mean just with papers or anything, just, you know, walking, when you're walking around, try to start defining, you know, if you, if you're walking around and you see a chair, it's like, okay, well, let's try defining chair. I mean, I've already defined by demonstration at that point. But what are other chairs? What is, what, if it's appropriate, what's the synonym? If it's appropriate, what's an antonym, right? Try to think of some classes of chairs, and there are lots of some classes of chairs, and give its definition by its genus and its differentiates species, right? And you move on from simpler objects of chair, table, desk, lamp, camera, right? To more complicated things, even more abstract things. So human, sentient, justice, existence. When you get into this habit, I think what you're going to find is that you're going to be able to identify the things that are real. You'll be much better at identifying things that are real. Certainly, you'll be able to articulate this, right? And this is really the first step, right? The first step in learning how to reason, learning how to use your mind. And if you master these, the steps, right? If you master finding, you'll be able to demonstrate to other people very quickly that you know what you're doing.