ABSTRACT
There is a tendency, when doing philosophy, to impose idealized definitions on familiar words. These may take the form of requirements that are more stringent than those under which a word is normally used, and in such cases the idealization may be presented as the ‘real’ or ‘strict’ meaning. Thus it may be claimed that although we often speak of actions being done freely, this is not really so according to a strict meaning of ‘free’; that although we speak of some actions as being done for unselfish motives, this is not so according to a strict meaning of ‘unselfish’; that although we speak of two people having the same feeling or perceiving the same colour, this is not really so, strictly speaking; that although we describe tables as solid, they are not, strictly speaking, really solid; and that although we often ascribe knowledge to people, this is not correct according to the strict meaning of ‘knowledge’. This kind of idealization was discussed in the last chapter and will be considered again in Chapter 7, in connection with philosophical scepticism. The present chapter is devoted to another kind of idealization, that of regimentation: replacing the situation-dependent uses of a word by a definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
