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Updated: June 27, 2025
As has already been noted, some psychologists have used the terms thinking and reasoning as synonyms, but such usage has resulted in confusion and has not been of practical value. It is only as the mental process desired becomes clearly conceived of, its connotations and denotation clearly defined, that it becomes a real goal towards Which a teacher or learner may strive.
To fix the connotation of a concrete name, or the denotation of the corresponding abstract, is to define the name. When this can be done without rendering any received assertions inadmissible, the name can be defined in accordance with its received use, which is vulgarly called defining not the name but the thing.
But every concrete general name should be given a definite connotation with the least possible change in the denotation; and this is what is aimed at in every definition of a general name already in use.
Literature moves between the extremes of music and denotation. Sound and object, in their sensuous presence, may have affinity. Syntax positively representative. Yet it vitiates what it represents. Difficulty in subduing a living medium. Language foreshortens experience. It is a perpetual mythology. It may be apt or inapt, with equal richness. Force of primary expressions.
As was seen in the preceding chapter, it may, for the ends of a particular art or science, or for the more convenient statement of an author’s particular doctrines, be advisable to give to some general name, without altering its denotation, a special connotation, different from its ordinary one.
He applied it to others, through attending, like all nominalists, to the denotation, and not the connotation of words, holding them to be, like proper names, mere marks put upon individuals. But when saying that, e.g. Socrates is wise, is a true proposition, because of the conformity of import between the terms, he should have asked himself why Socrates and wise are names of the same person.
According to the point of view, the generality of laws is explained by that of genera, or that of genera by that of laws. The first view is characteristic of ancient thought; the second belongs to modern philosophy. But in both ancient and modern philosophy the idea of "generality" is an equivocal idea, uniting in its denotation and in its connotation incompatible objects and elements.
Of the four rhetorical moods, or methods, of discourse, exposition lends itself the least to the assistance of the quality of style. Explanations are communicated from intellect to intellect. Words, in exposition, must be chosen chiefly with a view to definite denotation. The expository writer must be clear at any cost; he must aim to be precise rather than to be suggestive.
"the golden mountain does not exist" or "the round square is self-contradictory." If we are to preserve the duality of meaning and denotation, we have to say, with Meinong, that there are such objects as the golden mountain and the round square, although these objects do not have being. We even have to admit that the existent round square is existent, but does not exist.
First, it conveys to his intellect a definite meaning through the content of the words that are employed; and secondly, it conveys to his sensibilities an indefinite suggestion through their sound. Consciously, he receives a meaning from the denotation of the words; subconsciously, he receives a suggestion from their connotation.
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