21
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
A woman is an adult that identifies as female in gender.
A fallacy is an argument that is specious but persuasive. You have presented no substantial argument which often takes the form of first ...
- 22.9k
20
votes
Accepted
What was Cantor's philosophical reason for accepting the infinite but rejecting the infinitesimal?
Here is Cantor in his own words (from his influential 1887 letter to Weierstrass):
"I begin from the supposition of a linear magnitude ζ which is so small that its product by n , ζ · n, for every ...
- 42.5k
15
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
"A woman is anyone who identifies as a woman" is a definition, not an argument (it defines what "woman" means). So it cannot be fallacious. But it's circular*, which means it's not ...
- 5,570
14
votes
Accepted
Does Aristotle ever explicitly refer to man as a "rational animal"?
Kind of.
The obvious
As animal sociale is the Latin, especially Scholastic translation of zoon politikon, just as animal rationale is the translation of ζῷον λόγον ἔχον, zōon logon ekhon, he ...
- 13.5k
14
votes
Why did we define vacuous statements as true rather than false?
We do NOT define vacuous statements as true.
A vacuously true statement is vacuously true.
A "vacuously false" statement is vacuously false; although nobody ever gives this type of statement any ...
- 2,890
13
votes
Accepted
Are humans and other animals machines?
I like this question. It's thorny.
Merriam-Webster defines
machine so: a mechanically, electrically, or electronically operated device for performing a task.
That is, there is an operator (the entity ...
- 1,517
13
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
It isn't an argument, so cannot be a fallacy.
It is merely a definition.
A definition can be useful or not. It can be a prescriptive definition or a descriptive definition. Prescriptive definitions ...
- 297
11
votes
What was Cantor's philosophical reason for accepting the infinite but rejecting the infinitesimal?
The concept of infinitesimal small and infinitely large numbers has been been formalized by the mathematical domain of non-standard analysis.
The field of rationals (QQ,+,*) embedds into the ring (...
- 24.4k
11
votes
Is the dichotomy between natural and unnatural defensible?
Natural is one of those words that fit the description of what John Austin called trouser-words in his book Sense and Sensibilia. Sometimes you can only understand a word by reference to what it is ...
- 22.9k
10
votes
Is this a fallacy: "A woman is an adult who identifies as female in gender"?
The following definition is not circular:
A woman is somebody who says they are a woman.
This definition proposes a test, "do they say they are a woman?", to determine if somebody is a ...
- 716
9
votes
What is a straight line?
You're overthinking it!
Just kidding, as a fellow engineer, I have an inkling where you are digging at. Welcome to the fascinating underbelly of mathematics, which is constantly churning and mixing ...
- 17.5k
9
votes
How do we know we've defined a thing properly when all definitions have exceptions?
Do not expect to find a perfect definition.
A definition is an expression of the meaning of something (the problem of the thing, what is a thing, is another), and meanings are intended normally for ...
- 6,831
8
votes
What is a physical quantity in science?
Physical quantity is something that one measures. In other words it is defined by the measurement procedure/protocol. Then one can form an abstract view of such a quantity, as something that can be ...
- 1,533
8
votes
Question Regarding Holes
In mathematics a hole in a closed surface is an obstruction to contract a loop to a single point on the surface without removing the loop from the surface. The number of independent non-contractible ...
- 24.4k
7
votes
What is the name of the philosophy that believes one should do whatever they want?
Here is a blog post proposing a concept of "hedonic nihilism", which comes very close to what is described in the question.
Hedonic Nihilism is an amalgamation of two philosophical ideas.
...
- 1,102
6
votes
A non-circular definition of "not"
According to the research of the Natural semantic metalanguage project, the problem of circular definitions is solved through the identification of semantic primes, the basic blocks of meaning which ...
- 1,767
6
votes
Accepted
What does "true" mean in "justified true belief"?
This is slightly tricky as not everyone uttering that may have the same conception of truth, but generally speaking I think the definition only makes sense for some external/correspondence notion of ...
- 1,942
6
votes
How do we answer the question of "what is it"?
1.) Before answering a ‚What is?‘-question it may help to clarify:
Which type of statement would I accept as a satisfying answer?
We are not familiar with objects like electrons, protons, positrons, ...
- 24.4k
6
votes
Accepted
Neo-liberalism, language and freedom?
This is a very well thought-out question. You invoke Noam Chomsky's contributions to the philosophy of mind with his proposals regarding innate properties which he puts forward in his ideas regarding ...
- 22.9k
6
votes
How do we know we've defined a thing properly when all definitions have exceptions?
Several options to define a word.
1. Explicitly define a word in any arbitrary way you want
and then use it according to your definition. This method often works for new terms that you invented, such ...
- 11.1k
6
votes
Question Regarding Holes
No, when you eat a donut you eat the donut. The hole is no different to the rest of the space outside the volume occupied by the body of the donut, none of which do you eat. A hole is a term that ...
- 13.4k
6
votes
Can a definition be true/false?
The Stanford Encyclopedia lists several different kinds of definition, so it worth distinguishing some of them.
A dictionary definition aims to give the meaning of a word to speakers of the language. ...
- 22.9k
5
votes
Is the use of inconsistent definitions a logical fallacy?
There is a related fallacy of "defining into existence" when implicitly defined entities are illicitly declared existent, versions of the ontological argument are often accused of defining God into ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
What is a straight line?
This is a very good question, one that brings metaphysics to life. Unfortunately, I do not have a good answer, though I've tried to think about it.
While Cort Ammon and others have given good ...
- 13.3k
5
votes
Accepted
What are the parts of a definition called?
The expression being defined is called the definiendum of the definition, and the expression that defines is called the definiens.
In your example 'Planet' would be the definiendum.
Reference
- 6,466
5
votes
Does this definition of a soul make sense?
I've played with such compatablistic definitions of "soul" before. The biggest challenge you face is people just nodding their head and saying, "yeah, sure."
"Soul" is just a word. It's four ...
- 17.5k
5
votes
Difference between "neither true nor false" and "either true or false."
"Neither true nor false”
means that the statement has no definite truth valued : it lives in a sort of limbo, a truth value-gap between true and false.
“Either true or false”
means that the ...
- 36.2k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible