Overly Broad or Narrow Definitions
A definition is no good if it defines its subject with overly wide or narrow parameters. For example, "a shape with four sides of equal length" is not a good definition for 'square'. Why? Not only squares have four sides of equal length; rhombi do as well. This is proven by identifying not only the term being defined, but also the conditions in the definition. Likewise, defining a 'rectangle' as "a shape with four perpendicular sides of equal length" is not valid because it is too narrow.
Read more about this topic: Fallacies Of Definition
Famous quotes containing the words overly, broad, narrow and/or definitions:
“Many parents worry that they will reinforce a fear by being overly sympathetic. It helps to know that when children are permitted to avoid an animal or an object that frightens them, they tend to overcome a fear sooner than if parents push them to confront it.”
—Cathy Rindner Tempelsman (20th century)
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.... I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“After reading Howitt’s account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,—why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine.... At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Lord Byron is an exceedingly interesting person, and as such is it not to be regretted that he is a slave to the vilest and most vulgar prejudices, and as mad as the winds?
There have been many definitions of beauty in art. What is it? Beauty is what the untrained eyes consider abominable.”
—Edmond De Goncourt (1822–1896)