do you trust dictionary definitions?

Question

what about words like: truth, god , reality?

yeah i mean that philosophicaly. whatever that means.

Answer 1

Yes

Answer 2

Dictionaries are usually fine for more mundane words like "bird" (though the biological definition is typically more specific) and "ball" (not accounting for the differences between a real world "ball" and a geometrically precise sphere)...

When it comes to the more abstract terms like those you describe.... things start to break down. This isn't through any distinct failure of the dictionary so much as a failure amongst people to have a unanimously consistant experience. If two people cannot experience something the same way, and have no mutual frame of reference, then how are they supposed to explain their different experiences to each other? How then is a consistant definition supposed to be formed.


If you check the dictionary definition for "real"... you will start to get a purely cyclic definition. It effectively just refers to synonyms... which under their own articles likewise refer back to each other and to the original word. What this basically means is that "real" is essentially left undefined as anything more than a synonym of "actual" or what what "is".

Answer 3

No you can't but that is what semantics is all about.

If I say to you someone is pretty or handsome the dictionary definition is clear and obvious. However if I put a line of people in front of you I bet that we would disagree on which of the people are pretty or handsome.

When it comes to more esoteric concepts like God, good, evil, etc then our interpretation could be completely opposite yet we both know what the actual word means.

This interpretive difference is the basis of the science of semantics (or you may not consider it to be a science - we are playing with words again! Perhaps it's an art).

Check out

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantics

but just remember that this is a dictionary as well and you need to be wary of the interpretations.

Answer 4

It depends on what dictionary. Webster's and Oxford, among others, are reliable.

The definitions in the dictionary are conventional, that is, they are common definitions generally accepted and agreed upon but they are not arbitrarily assigned to words they define but based on or derived empirically from common usage.

Philosophy defines abstract concepts and philosophers will define them in different ways, not to mention quarrel among themselves what the definition of a term should be. In that regard, philosophy has no business defining words in the dictionary.

However, the true test of dictionary definition is that the definition SHOULD BE CLEARER THAN THE THING DEFINED.

Otherwise, you might as well burn the dictionary like disgruntled lawyers who frequently lost ther cases burn their law books.

Answer 5

As a matter of fact, I am quite impressed by the confidence with which dictionaries are compiled, the remarkable spontaneity and boldness with which one definition leads on to the next. Ok the plot might be a little loose there, but look at the dramatic effects that two differently meaning words cause when they come within immediacy of one another, and think about the richness of the ways metaphor, simile, allegory and legend crystallised into meaningful definitions; the semantics, the phonetic evaluations and regional and cultural variations of general word. I simply love it. This is how I like knowledge to be presented to me classified, crystallised and arranged in algorithms easies to traverse across and through. It is quite amazing!

I often spend hours trying to read dictionary and after a time I have mastered the skill of opening an unmarked dictionary, right in the middle, exactly at the page of the word in my mind. I once also tried to mark all the words that I had in my active knowledge, leaving new ones unmarked; it was fun. But then I lost that dictionary having to buy a brand new one. I also tried to remember all the meanings of the words starting from aardvark to zygote, including many spectaculars words in the rut, words like bamboozle, bastinado, compunction, dicotyledonous, kowtow and remonstration, just to name a few.

I have learnt English as a second langue, you see, and in the early days of my college, dictionaries used to be my main weapon in my fight against ignorance or general lack of vital verbal know how about important things in life at a global level for the purpose of practical worldwide communication.

But I have to be honest, as always. I have to admit that I have never been a reader consistent enough, or a pedantically persistent to seek pure knowledge without a desiring to immediately put things into practice along the way. I have never been able to read any dictionary cover-to-cover in a trot to capture its main argument, to understand its truest sense or fullest meaningfulness. I am afraid I am like many others who would simply and impatiently just skip along pages, quite like a buck who would never be content with a place at a time and would always skim places for the juiciest mouthful ever. I would leap across word, dozens of them at time, to find the most interesting, or the ones dictated by the urgency my need.

Answer 6

Well yes, why not? There is no reason not to. The dictionary definition gives you a concise definition of what a word means. It gives you an over view. You are then at liberty to delve further and research more....

Answer 7

Yes because it is useful. But if you would insist on discussing this philosophically, the meaning you find in the dictionary is not the true meaning of the word. those meanings are just guides for you. The true meaning a word is dependent on its use. Hence, dictionaries are always updated because of the dynamic use of a word would let the meaning of the word evolve. ...

Answer 8

I trust all dictionary definitions for most things. But you're right they can't really define words like god or death but they can define how people commonly use the words.

Dictionarys are very trustworthy.

Answer 9

In the United Kingdom, many people claim that the Oxford English dictonary is the official declearation of definitions.

Of course, many dictonaries vary slight on the definition of words; and since we can aplly them for different reasons, you will find that they can take on slightly different meanings.

You should be more careful about your ability to communicate so that you know that who your talking to understands what your saying. It is thier understanding that means something more than what the dictonary says.

Sabretooth

Answer 10

Depends on the dictionary and the source of the conversation, doesn't it.

If I'm reading a book and run across aword I don't know then I'd probably look it up.

Try that with a rap-video and you wouldn't get too far would you "home"?


g-day!