If you wanted to know how the word “thinking” is usually interpreted, you could go out to look at the contexts where the distinction between thinking and not thinking is used in practice, and study what dynamics it refers to there.
Sounds like you’re talking about extensional definitions. This is useful to know about, but not really the point here. I deal with words more directly in Chapter 2, and the extension/intensional distinction is something that didn’t make the original cut but after writing this chapter I already made a note to myself to go back and work it in because it’s quite relevant to the discussion in this chapter.
This technique isn’t necessarily limited to extensional stuff. Once you know what extension a community of people use a word for, you can analyze what key intensional properties are needed in order to use the word for that thing, and then you can apply those intensional properties to other things outside the domain that the community usually works in.
If you wanted to know how the word “thinking” is usually interpreted, you could go out to look at the contexts where the distinction between thinking and not thinking is used in practice, and study what dynamics it refers to there.
Sounds like you’re talking about extensional definitions. This is useful to know about, but not really the point here. I deal with words more directly in Chapter 2, and the extension/intensional distinction is something that didn’t make the original cut but after writing this chapter I already made a note to myself to go back and work it in because it’s quite relevant to the discussion in this chapter.
This technique isn’t necessarily limited to extensional stuff. Once you know what extension a community of people use a word for, you can analyze what key intensional properties are needed in order to use the word for that thing, and then you can apply those intensional properties to other things outside the domain that the community usually works in.