Filipino culture and identity

Abstract

Anyone who has some acquaintance with logic and semantics at all, gets an idea of the difficulties encountered in defining a word, particularly an abstract and generic term. For one thing, there are the logical requirements. For example, in a logical definition, one should bring out the Five Heads of Predicables, two of which are genus and species. The determination of genus and species involves, among other things, classification and division. A definition, consequently, entails these two processes. Now, a term can be divided in various ways, depending on the fundamentum divisionis or on the universe of discourse. When you come to the other heads of predicables — property, differentia and accident — the problem is more complicated and more difficult. In fact, as the noted semanticist, Hayakawa, has observed, even the dictionary cannot always make the meaning of a word sufficiently clear and exact. There are contextual, rhetorical, and syntactical factors to take into account. As a witty person has quipped, “We know many things until we are asked.”