Definition
idea · 3 works · 5 mentions · 8 anchored passages
definition · definitions · a complete definition · a deficient definition · a real definition · a sound delimitation · by its synonyms · defining · defining a thing · genus and differentia
in the texts
Kitāb mīzān al-ḥaqq fī al-manṭiq
The definition proper: its method of ordered universals, its complete and deficient grades, and the duties that make it real rather than merely descriptive or verbal.
And if it is the second, then you state for him its definitions and its attributes, putting the more general before the more specific and the higher before the lower, in a form that gathers in all the individuals of the thing characterised and its parts and bars what is not of it from entering into its conception, while observing brevity and confining yourself to what is necessary of them
Accordingly, if it is a genus you state that genus and the one before it, and if it is a species you state that species and the genus — and this is called (a complete definition);
As for that about whose quiddity the question has been asked, when you wish to define it with a real definition, you have duties in the matter, and the definition is not real save by them;
Mukhtaṣar fī ʻilm al-nafs al-insānīyah
The logical definition by genus and differentia, first applied to the soul in Aristotle's formula and then used as a proof that human souls cannot differ in nature, since the definition of man is one for all.
and that is absurd, because the definition of man without qualification is “rational animal”.
and his words “alive in potency” mean that the soul is united with the body of the semen, which is alive in potency (4)
On the definition of the soul
On Moral Ends
The dialectical practice of clarifying what a term means before disputing about it
This rule, laid down by Plato in the Phaedrus, Epicurus approved, and felt that it ought to be done in every discussion.
For you were defining this very thing — whether 'end' or 'uttermost' or 'last' — as that to which all things rightly done are referred, while it itself is referred to nothing.
Now every discourse which is conducted by some method and reasoning in inquiry ought first to lay down, as in certain legal formulas, the terms on which the matter shall be handled, so that those between whom the discussion is held may agree what the thing is about which the discussion turns.