From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!psinntp!norton!brian Fri Jan 31 10:27:32 EST 1992
Article 3319 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!psinntp!norton!brian
>From: brian@norton.com (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Viruses: alive?
Message-ID: <1992Jan30.023404.6005@norton.com>
Date: 30 Jan 92 02:34:04 GMT
References: <63805@netnews.upenn.edu>
Organization: Symantec / Peter Norton
Lines: 38

weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
 
> >So how do you do philosophy?  Seems to me that definitions are a 
> >fundamental part of philosophy (and dictionaries are just full of them).
> >I'd like to see you get very far without them.  Suggestions?
> >Constructive criticism?
 
> First: throw away your dictionary.  Or at least, understand what it is.
> It was put together under severe budgetary and editing constraints that
> makes it useful for general questions but usually useless for the hard
> technical questions.  You don't have to believe me: look up books on
> lexicography and see for yourself.  Go back in time and read some of the
> nasty reviews of Mirriam-Webster's Third International Dictionary.

Is your position then that definitions are not things that can be right/wrong?
Or are you just saying that the right way to determine a definition is not 
to appeal to authority?  
 
> It's easy to prove that dictionaries have their limits: look up the
> definition of "dog".  Any definition will probably be incompatible
> with one or more of the following: "dead dog", "three-legged dog",
> "space alien dog", "ceramic dog", "three-headed dog". 

Aren't all of these "doglike-yet-not-dogs"?  The concept "dog" would seem to apply to 
each of these just fine, and so does the word associated with that concept.
What else would you call a non-living dog rather than "dead dog" or a
a dog-shaped bit of stone but a "dog statue"?  The term "dog" would seem perfectly
consistent with what my dictionary says.

I should note that I don't consider appeals to a dictionary as the proper way
to determine the right definition, but that doesn't mean that dictionaries
are incapable of being right.

-- 
-- Brian K. Yoder (brian@norton.com) - Q: What do you get when you cross     --
-- Peter Norton Computing Group      -    Apple & IBM?                       --
-- Symantec Corporation              - A: IBM.                               --
--


