[MD] Definitions - All or Nothing ?

[ian glendinning]

I freely admit to playing fast and loose with accepted / dictionary
definitions of terms in my attempts at dialogue - to the point of
being positively "anti" definitions, when these are used as the basis
for argument - and often draw strong criticism for my troubles.

Some weeks ago I found these words from Alan Rayner on this very subject.
[QUOTE] In my experience, to call for definitions to be relaxed in a
culture that is addicted to definition is to come into close encounter
with stony ground, if not something like the fury of a toddler
threatened with separation from its favourite toy or security blanket
! … principal among objectivity's objections to inclusionality is that
the razed down simplicity that comes from defining things will 'get
lost'. Personally, I rather wish that it would ! But, seriously, this
objection illustrates the addictive, all or none quality of false
dichotomy: either we have total definition or no definition.
Definition is something we must have if we are not to get totally lost
in a sea of troubles. We exclude between two stools the dynamic
'middle ground' synthesis of 'neither entirely one nor the other' …
[UNQUOTE]

This "addiction" to definition is part of the "logical positivist
objective" meme we seemt o suffer from in expectations of
argumentation and rationale.

Find more from Alan Rayner here.
http://people.bath.ac.uk/bssadmr/inclusionality/

Ian