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Full Idea
The definitionalist errs by abstracting away from differences cosmic processes, freezing real, dynamic processes in snapshot-concepts.
Gist of Idea
Definitionalists rely on snapshot-concepts, instead of on the real processes
Source
Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 08)
Book Ref
-: 'Journal of Philosophy' [-], p.372
A Reaction
You could hardly do science at all if you didn't 'abstract away from the differences in cosmic processes'. We can't write about sea-waves, because they all differ slightly? 'Electron' is a snapshot concept.
| 17864 | Defining an essence comes no where near giving a thing's nature [Almog] |
| 17863 | Essences promise to reveal reality, but actually drive us away from it [Almog] |
| 17866 | Essential definition aims at existence conditions and structural truths [Almog] |
| 17867 | If a concept is not compact, it will not be presentable to finite minds [Almog] |
| 17868 | Surface accounts aren't exhaustive as they always allow unintended twin cases [Almog] |
| 17869 | Kripke and Putnam offer an intermediary between real and nominal essences [Almog] |
| 17871 | Fregean meanings are analogous to conceptual essence, defining a kind [Almog] |
| 17872 | Definitionalists rely on snapshot-concepts, instead of on the real processes [Almog] |
| 17873 | Water must be related to water, just as tigers must be related to tigers [Almog] |
| 17870 | Alien 'tigers' can't be tigers if they are not related to our tigers [Almog] |
| 17876 | Individual essences are just cobbled together classificatory predicates [Almog] |
| 17877 | The number series is primitive, not the result of some set theoretic axioms [Almog] |