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Full Idea
Contextual definition precipitated a revolution in semantics. The primary vehicle of meaning is seen no longer as the word, but as the sentence.
Gist of Idea
Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences
Source
Willard Quine (Five Milestones of Empiricism [1975], p.69)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'Theories and Things' [Harvard 1981], p.69
A Reaction
I think the idea is that the term is now supported entirely by its surrounding language, and not by its denotation of something in the world.
Related Idea
Idea 19047 Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine]
| 9845 | We can't define a word by defining an expression containing it, as the remaining parts are a problem [Frege] |
| 9844 | Originally Frege liked contextual definitions, but later preferred them fully explicit [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 9822 | Nothing should be defined in terms of that to which it is conceptually prior [Frege, by Dummett] |
| 21560 | Any linguistic expression may lack meaning when taken out of context [Russell] |
| 19047 | Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine] |
| 19048 | Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine] |
| 8995 | Definition by words is determinate but relative; fixing contexts could make it absolute [Quine] |
| 9847 | A contextual definition permits the elimination of the expression by a substitution [Dummett] |
| 10476 | The idea that groups of concepts could be 'implicitly defined' was abandoned [Hodges,W] |
| 10142 | The attempt to define numbers by contextual definition has been revived [Wright,C, by Fine,K] |
| 9961 | 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner] |
| 10204 | An 'implicit definition' gives a direct description of the relations of an entity [Shapiro] |
| 18776 | Contextual definitions eliminate descriptions from contexts [Linsky,B] |
| 9955 | Contextual definitions replace a complete sentence containing the expression [George/Velleman] |