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J Daigle, et al.
You could avoid a Wittgensteinian stumbling block on defintion by following
Aristotle. There are four 'aitia' that bring a thing into being, viz. 1/
material cause 2/ agent 3/ form 4/ final cause. This shows how hard
it is to produce a definition. The stuff about film being celluloid,
etc., comes under material cause, i.e the stuff out of which it is made.
The agent refers to those conditions that actively bring it into being,
e.g. director, author, society, social movements, etc.. The Form is
the type under which it comes. And the final cause is its aim or what it
is supposed to achieve or more accurately, to be
By the time Wittgenstein appears on the scene, definitions confine
themselves to what a thing is, which is merely part 3. But the meaning of
a thing and the being of a thing do not separate like this. E.g. if one
gives the definition of 'triangle' the definition tells you what the word
means but at the same time, what a triangle _is_. 'A triangle is ...' and
'The word 'triangle' means ...' come out the same.
Daniel McGrady
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