definitionism en · NOUN
Etymology
From definition + -ism.
Meanings
-
(uncountable) The school of thought that for a theory to be properly explained it is necessary that all concepts used by the theory be well-defined.
Perhaps definitionism does not work for all complex concepts.
2007, Karen Neander, “Biological Approaches to Mental Representation”, in Mohan Matthan, Christopher Stephens, editors, Philosophy of Biology, North-Holland: Elsevier, page 561:1992, William R. LaFleur, Liquid Life: Abortion and Buddhism in Japan, Princeton University Press, page 15, Quoted in 2015, Adam C. Pelser, Robert C. Roberts, 18: Religious value and moral psychology, Tobias Brosch, David Sander (editors), Handbook of Value, Oxford University Press, page 388, Instead of logic chopping and the unconnected neat boxes produced by definitionism, ritual provides activities that fuse a wide variety of things that seem otherwise unrelated.
Some philosophers have not given up on definitionism.
2006, Jack S. Crumley II, A Brief Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind, Rowman & Littlefield, page 152:
Deriveds
Relateds
epistemology · ostensive definition · rationalism
Synonyms
classical theory of concepts (school of thought)