Intensional: A material object, made by people, designed to fit over the human foot; relatively more rigid than a “sock”; made for any of a variety of protective or decorative purposes.
Extensional: A hiking boot; a women’s high-heeled shoe; a canvas sneaker; a Birkenstock sandal; a men’s dress shoe; a cowboy boot; a geta.
Hope
Intensional: An emotion, felt by human beings, associated with contemplating a pleasant possible future, while not contemplating possible failings of that future.
Extensional: No idea …
Wire
Intensional: A material object, made of metal, very much longer than it is wide or thick; usually circular in cross section. Produced in bulk by drawing, not stamping or casting. Sometimes insulated with plastic or other electrically non-conductive materials for purposes of electrical transmission.
Extensional: A strand from a Cat-5 cable; a power cord; a lead from an electronics kit; a strand of electric fencing; the cutting edge of certain kitchen tools such as egg cutters or cheese slicers.
Green
Intensional: A color of thus-and-such frequencies.
Extensional: The leaves of various deciduous trees in spring; grass; a pea pod; the light emitted by particular LEDs or laser diodes; simulations of grass such as AstroTurf; a highway sign; certain military uniforms; certain parrots, lizards, or fish; water populated by certain species of algae.
Politician
Intensional: A person whose economic or social status depends on representing some constituency in a legislature, elective office, or other office of government.
Extensional: Cicero; Metternich; Jefferson; Huey Long; Jerry Brown; Rick Santorum.
Apple
Intensional: The fruit of various trees of genus Malus; having a size to easily fit in the human hand; frequently roughly spheroid in shape; sweet or tart in flavor; green, yellow, or red in color; possessing a fivefold symmetry readily observable in cross-section; easily distinguishable from the quinces of genus Cydonia by not being fuzzy or starchy; and from the pears of genus Pyrus by shape and by not being granular in the texture of the flesh.
Extensional: A Granny Smith; a Golden Delicious; a Red Delicious; a Pink Lady; a McIntosh; a Jonathan; and a few crab-apples of various sorts.
Easiest to hardest: Shoe, wire, apple, green, politician, hope.
I disagree with this one. In fact I am having trouble coming up with a concise intentional definition at all.
The fruit of various trees of genus Malus;
How does one define a genus? By it’s genome? I would call an entirely artificial fruit ‘an apple’ if it were sufficiently similar to one.
green, yellow, or red in color; possessing a fivefold symmetry readily observable in cross-section;
If we bred them to be blue and to have a fourfold symmetry, they would still be apples.
I’ve really picked apart this one example but your comment is good overall and I applaud you for taking the time to write all this up; many of my definitions were very complex, so I did not bother.
How does one define a genus? By it’s genome? I would call an entirely artificial fruit ‘an apple’ if it were sufficiently similar to one.
I would call a raven a writing desk if it were sufficiently similar to one :P
But yeah, since we’re really talking about human pattern-matching, apple is defined in terms of “common but not strictly necessary traits.” Similar violations of any non-fuzzy definition could be constructed for shoes (hand-shoes), wire (a piece of wire shorter than it was wide), green (yellow), politicians (candidates), and hope (simple expression of preference). You might even be able to convince people that if you make a shape out of wood it can be a square even if the sides aren’t exactly the same length. However, it is a convenient convention to omit this fuzziness in definitions since it’s so common, and instead rely on the judgement of the reader to associate a thing with the closest definition.
Or, if there is no definition that is not different from the observed pattern in some key way (“key” here is subjective and mostly functional—a biologist might find genes of a species key but a non-biologist might find appearance key, and not vice versa), humans might make up a new category for this pattern.
I picked apple because it was the farthest from a true definition. For the others, I think one could use them in an ‘if-and-only-if’ manner and not be objected to.
Oh, I had assumed that the piece of wire was supposed to be performing some wiry function, since I would describe this case as “some wire” but not as “a wire”.
Cicero; Metternich; Jefferson; Huey Long; Jerry Brown; Rick Santorum.
Your omission of explicit dictators and representatives of dictatorial regimes (Metternich is quite close to that, but not entirely) creates an impression that “politician” requires sort of democracy, which I think doesn’t capture the meaning precisely. Include Kim Jong-il, Hermann Göring, Leonid Brezhnev.
My reasons to think of dictators and their collaborators as politicians are:
They hold analogical offices as the democratic politicans (presidents, ministers, deputies).
There is a weak need to have a name for that category of people in autoritarian regimes, and there is no other good label available.
There is no sharp boundary between democracy and dictatorship, so it is possible to extend the category of democratic politicians over the whatever-you-call-it category of deputies, ministers etc. in any regime.
Those people call themselves politicians.
The word politics isn’t reserved for democratic politics as well.
I think my usage may not be non-standard after all, as e.g. Wikipedia states that Beria was a Soviet politician.
Hm. It’s probably me with the non-standard usage. I was thinking that if dictators were politicians, so were generals and kings, and that didn’t seem right.
There’s a cultural difference. The image a kind needs to cultivate is different from that of a modern senator; so is the way they go about doing it. So is the way they prepare for and obtain their power. And the connotations I’ve picked up for them differ somewhat too. Politician implies semi-concealed corruption. King implies either noble righteousness or really obvious corruption.
For my own part, while I share what I think is the meaning of “politician” you are working with here, I seem to also have a distinct meaning for it which is just someone who primarily achieves their ends via manipulation of group hierarchies. (In that sense, for example, I often talk about some managers being politicians while others are technicians.)
Intensional: A material object, made by people, designed to fit over the human foot; relatively more rigid than a “sock”; made for any of a variety of protective or decorative purposes.
Extensional: A hiking boot; a women’s high-heeled shoe; a canvas sneaker; a Birkenstock sandal; a men’s dress shoe; a cowboy boot; a geta.
Intensional: An emotion, felt by human beings, associated with contemplating a pleasant possible future, while not contemplating possible failings of that future.
Extensional: No idea …
Intensional: A material object, made of metal, very much longer than it is wide or thick; usually circular in cross section. Produced in bulk by drawing, not stamping or casting. Sometimes insulated with plastic or other electrically non-conductive materials for purposes of electrical transmission.
Extensional: A strand from a Cat-5 cable; a power cord; a lead from an electronics kit; a strand of electric fencing; the cutting edge of certain kitchen tools such as egg cutters or cheese slicers.
Intensional: A color of thus-and-such frequencies.
Extensional: The leaves of various deciduous trees in spring; grass; a pea pod; the light emitted by particular LEDs or laser diodes; simulations of grass such as AstroTurf; a highway sign; certain military uniforms; certain parrots, lizards, or fish; water populated by certain species of algae.
Intensional: A person whose economic or social status depends on representing some constituency in a legislature, elective office, or other office of government.
Extensional: Cicero; Metternich; Jefferson; Huey Long; Jerry Brown; Rick Santorum.
Intensional: The fruit of various trees of genus Malus; having a size to easily fit in the human hand; frequently roughly spheroid in shape; sweet or tart in flavor; green, yellow, or red in color; possessing a fivefold symmetry readily observable in cross-section; easily distinguishable from the quinces of genus Cydonia by not being fuzzy or starchy; and from the pears of genus Pyrus by shape and by not being granular in the texture of the flesh.
Extensional: A Granny Smith; a Golden Delicious; a Red Delicious; a Pink Lady; a McIntosh; a Jonathan; and a few crab-apples of various sorts.
Easiest to hardest: Shoe, wire, apple, green, politician, hope.
I disagree with this one. In fact I am having trouble coming up with a concise intentional definition at all.
How does one define a genus? By it’s genome? I would call an entirely artificial fruit ‘an apple’ if it were sufficiently similar to one.
If we bred them to be blue and to have a fourfold symmetry, they would still be apples.
I’ve really picked apart this one example but your comment is good overall and I applaud you for taking the time to write all this up; many of my definitions were very complex, so I did not bother.
I would call a raven a writing desk if it were sufficiently similar to one :P
But yeah, since we’re really talking about human pattern-matching, apple is defined in terms of “common but not strictly necessary traits.” Similar violations of any non-fuzzy definition could be constructed for shoes (hand-shoes), wire (a piece of wire shorter than it was wide), green (yellow), politicians (candidates), and hope (simple expression of preference). You might even be able to convince people that if you make a shape out of wood it can be a square even if the sides aren’t exactly the same length. However, it is a convenient convention to omit this fuzziness in definitions since it’s so common, and instead rely on the judgement of the reader to associate a thing with the closest definition.
Or, if there is no definition that is not different from the observed pattern in some key way (“key” here is subjective and mostly functional—a biologist might find genes of a species key but a non-biologist might find appearance key, and not vice versa), humans might make up a new category for this pattern.
I picked apple because it was the farthest from a true definition. For the others, I think one could use them in an ‘if-and-only-if’ manner and not be objected to.
I really want to see both of these things now.
A piece of wire shorter than it was wide would just be a very small disk. Imagine cutting a wire into little slices.
Oh, I had assumed that the piece of wire was supposed to be performing some wiry function, since I would describe this case as “some wire” but not as “a wire”.
Your omission of explicit dictators and representatives of dictatorial regimes (Metternich is quite close to that, but not entirely) creates an impression that “politician” requires sort of democracy, which I think doesn’t capture the meaning precisely. Include Kim Jong-il, Hermann Göring, Leonid Brezhnev.
That’s interesting. I explicitly think of dictators as not being politicians.
My reasons to think of dictators and their collaborators as politicians are:
They hold analogical offices as the democratic politicans (presidents, ministers, deputies).
There is a weak need to have a name for that category of people in autoritarian regimes, and there is no other good label available.
There is no sharp boundary between democracy and dictatorship, so it is possible to extend the category of democratic politicians over the whatever-you-call-it category of deputies, ministers etc. in any regime.
Those people call themselves politicians.
The word politics isn’t reserved for democratic politics as well.
I think my usage may not be non-standard after all, as e.g. Wikipedia states that Beria was a Soviet politician.
Hm. It’s probably me with the non-standard usage. I was thinking that if dictators were politicians, so were generals and kings, and that didn’t seem right.
Can you say more about why kings don’t seem like politicians? (I think I sort of understand the argument for generals.)
There’s a cultural difference. The image a kind needs to cultivate is different from that of a modern senator; so is the way they go about doing it. So is the way they prepare for and obtain their power. And the connotations I’ve picked up for them differ somewhat too. Politician implies semi-concealed corruption. King implies either noble righteousness or really obvious corruption.
Interesting. Thanks for unpacking that.
For my own part, while I share what I think is the meaning of “politician” you are working with here, I seem to also have a distinct meaning for it which is just someone who primarily achieves their ends via manipulation of group hierarchies. (In that sense, for example, I often talk about some managers being politicians while others are technicians.)
That’s an interesting way of thinking about it. Thanks for starting this conversation, it was fun.