A Practical Example

Despite what we said in the previous chapter, there will still be those who ask, ‘But why can’t we just look up the meaning of these words in a dictionary, rather than go through the process of analysis?’ And, of course, they’re right: with some words this is all you need to do. What you might describe as ‘closed concepts’ usually have an unchanging, unambiguous meaning. Words like ‘bicycle’, ‘bachelor’ and ‘triangle’ each have a structure to their meaning, which is bound by logical necessity. We all agree to abide by certain conventions that rule the meaning of these words. So, if you were to say ‘this is a bicycle with one wheel’, or ‘this triangle has four sides’, no one would be in any doubt that you had made a logical mistake. When we use these words according to their conventions we are, in effect, allowing our understanding of the world to be structured in a particular way. But with ‘open concepts’ it tends to be the reverse: our experience of the world shapes our concepts. As a result, such words cannot be pinned down just by looking them up in a dictionary. Their meaning responds to and reflects our changing experience: they change through time and from one culture to another. A dictionary definition, then, can only ever be a single snapshot taken in a constantly moving reel of images.