UNIT 2 CONCEPT AND TERM

Contents

2.0 Objectives
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Concept, Word and Terms.
2.3 Terms as a Name of Class
2.4 Extension and Intension
2.5 Inverse Variation
2.6 Classification of Terms
2.7 Let Us Sum Up
2.8 Key Words
2.9 Further Readings and References
2.10 Answers to Check Your Progress

2.0 OBJECTIVES
Logic is said to be the study of argument as expressed in language. Language in general
is highly ambiguous. In any language words are often used in various senses. For example,
sometimes ‘thought’ and knowledge’ are used as synonymous terms. Therefore this unit aims at:
• examining major entities in the language of logic like concepts, words and terms and
thereby show that they carry lot of philosophical significance and at the same time carry
different senses.

• familiarizing the students with varieties of technical terms. Terms can be classified under
different criteria. There are simple and composite terms, singular and general terms,
collective and non-collective terms, absolute and relative terms, concrete and abstract
terms, positive, negative and private terms and connotative and non-connotative terms.
This unit undertakes a study of these various types of terms to procure a good
undertaking of the language of logic with which the student is expected to be sufficiently
acquainted.

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Language is the external expression of intention, thought etc. It is the means of communicating
our ideas to other people. In logic, by language we mean only the verbal expression of our ideas,
either spoken or written. The Greeks seem to have used the word ‘logos’ to denote ideas as well
as speech. This clearly shows the close relation between language and thought. As Grumbley has
rightly pointed out, thought and language are closely connected just like how principles of life
and activities of a living organism are connected. Clear thinking and accurate language help each
other.

Further, it is language that gives thought a name and an abiding reality as a permanent
possession. It is popularly said: ‘Thought lives in language’. The multitudes of objects that we

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see around cannot be remembered unless certain names are endowed to the ideas of those
objects. The nature of thought is such that it gets dissolved unless we put them in words.
Language not only structures thought by codifying them, but also does the service of
preserving them for future generations. It enables us to split complex ideas into atomic ones to
analyse and thereby understand them. Hence the philosophers often comment that logic and
language are the two sides of the same coin. In order to understand complex ideas we split them
into simple words. Words like chastity, nationality, religious are just a few examples to convince
ourselves that words can stand representing condensed expression of complex thoughts pregnant
with many ideas. In this unit an attempt is made to understand how words, concepts and terms
play a decisive role in our study of logic.

2.2 CONCEPT, WORD AND TERM

It is necessary to distinguish between word, concept and term. Concept means a general idea.
There is difference between the two ideas represented by the terms ‘student’ and ‘a student’.
The term ‘a student’ refers to a particular student in an indefinite manner and it is essentially
singular in usage. The term ‘student’ is applied in general to all those who undertake studies. The
common and essential attributes which are found in every particular individual of the class are
thought of separately, and thus we get a concept. In brief, the concept stands for general ideas.
When expressed in language concept becomes a term. Judgment is the process of relating two
concepts. For instance, the two concepts ‘water’ and ‘cold’ may be related and the result is the
judgement, ‘water is cold’. A judgment when expressed in language is called a proposition.

Sometimes it is said that concepts are mental entities. They are not visible. Conception or
simple apprehension is the function of human mind by which an idea of a concept is formed in
the mind. It is a process of forming mental image of an object, e.g., you see an elephant and form
an idea of the elephant in the mind.

The formation of concepts involves the fallowing processes.

(1) Comparison: Different entities are compared with one another so that the attributes they share
in common and those on which they differ can be specified. This process enables the agent to
find essential attributes of the concept and distinguish them from what are merely accidental.
(2) Abstraction: The next step is to abstract the essential characteristics. This is purely an
intellectual exercise.
(3) Generalization: The third step is to generalize the result of abstraction because obviously not
all objects belonging to any given class are observed.
(4) Naming: The final step is to give a name to the generalized group of common attributes, so
that it becomes easy to retain the idea of the concept in our mind.

Regarding the nature of conception, there are three views prevalent in metaphysics,
Realism, Conceptualism and Nominalism. According to realism there is a corresponding real
substance to every concept. This view is attributed to ancient Greek thinkers like Plato.
Conceptualism is the view according to which conceptions are not real things but only general
ideas. Nominalism is the view according to which conception are merely general names, not
general ideas.

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 What is a word? A word consists of a letter or combination of letters conveying
determinate meaning. A word may consist of only one letter. e.g. a, I, or it may consist of more
than one letter, e.g., an, man, horse, mortal etc.

A name is a word or group of words which can become the subject or predicate of a
proposition. Every word cannot be called name, e.g., ‘or’, ‘before, ‘if’ etc. If we say ‘Before has
four legs’ it sounds stupid. Thus it is clear that all words can not become names while all names
must be words. Hobbes defines name thus: “A name is a word taken at pleasure to serve for a
mark which may raise in our mind a thought like some thought which we had before, and which
being pronounced by either, may be to them a sign of what thought the speaker had before his
mind”. Mill also speaks of two kinds of words: words which are not names (as described above)
and words which are names. He calls the latter term.

A term is a word, or a combination of words, which by itself is capable of being used as subject
or predicate of a proposition. A proposition is a declarative statement which is either true or false
but not both. A term is so called because it occurs at the boundaries of a proposition. In the
proposition ‘Gandhiji is the father of the nation’, ‘Gandhiji, and ‘father of the nation’ are terms
because they occur at the boundaries of the proposition. Traditional logic speaks of two kinds of
words, viz., subject and predicate. In the example quoted above ‘Gandhiji’ is the subject because
the proposition says something about ‘Gandhiji’ and ‘father of the nation’ is the predicate
because it says something about subject, i. e., ‘Gandhiji’. It means that subject term is that about
which something is said and the predicate term is what is said about subject term. Here ‘is’ is not
a term because it is incapable of functioning either as a subject or as a predicate. Also, names
become terms only if they are parts of a proposition as subject and predicate. Thus every word is
not term though every term is a word or a combination of words. Again, names may have
different meanings, but a term has only one definite meaning in a proposition. Outside the
proposition a term loses its significance and is merely a name. For example, Balance means a
weighing machine or whatever is left after expenditure. However, when we use it in the
proposition ‘Balance is a weighing machine’, it carries only one meaning.

There are three kinds words: Categorematic, syncategorematic and a-categorematic. A

categoremtic word is one which can by itself be used as a term without the help of other words,
e.g. pencil, clever, man, etc. In other words when a word is used independently either as a
subject or a predicate in a statement it is called as categorematic word.
Examples:
Roses are red. (Here ‘red’ is used as a predicate.)
Red is a color. (Here ‘red’ is used as a subject.)

All nouns including proper nouns are categorematic words. Let us look at a negative example.
Consider a statement; ‘roses are very colourful’, the word ‘very’ cannot be independently used.
We will not write ‘Roses are very’, it makes no sense. Nor can we use it as a subject. Again,
when we say some are red, we actually mean ‘out of many objects only some objects are red.
Although some appears to be a subject it really is not. We understand it by the context in which
the statement is made. ‘Maradona is a great football player’. Here Maradona is used
independently the subject in the statement. In these examples the words ‘roses’, ‘Maradona’,
‘colourful’, etc., are categorematic words.

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A syncategorematic word is one which cannot be used independently as term, but which can only
be used along with other words e.g., of, with, and, the, etc. It is a word that is used as part of a
subject or a predicate, or a word that joins the subject and the predicate. Nouns, participles,
pronouns, adjectives, etc., are categorematic words, while parts of speech like preposition,
adverb, etc., are syncategorematic words. Let us look at a few examples. In the statement ‘Some
people are funny’ ‘some’ is a part of the subject and so it is a syncategorematic word. The word
‘are’ joins the subject and predicate, and it is also a syncategorematic word.

Let us look at a few more examples: consider the statement ‘Computer is very fast’. Here ‘is’ and
‘very’ are parts of the predicate. They are syncategorematic words. In the statement ‘the
telephone is dead’, the word ‘the’ and ‘is’ are syncategorematic. Again in the example ‘the cat is
under the chair’, ‘under’, ‘the’, and ‘is’ are syncategorematic words. In fact all words other than
nouns and emotive words like Ah! Ouch! Alas, are syncategorematic words. In brief, a
categorematic word is one which can be used as a term by itself, without the support of other
words and syncategorematic word is one which cannot be used as a term by itself, but can form
term only when joined to one or more categorematic words.

A-categorematic words merely express some exclamatory feelings or emotions. Examples:

Ouch! Aha! Hurrah! Hymn! Alas! Oh! and similar such exclamations. The word acategorematic
may be jaw- breaking, but the words in this classification are pretty easy to identify. It cannot
become a term either singly or even when conjoined with other words such as interjection.

This classification of words into three types have been determined by the presupposition that
subject predicate form is the basic form and all other sentences or propositions have to be
transformed into this form.

At this stage we need to introduce two very important notions: denotation and connotation. In
the first place terms are used to point out objects, to name and to identify them, e.g., the term
‘man’ refers to all human beings. When a term is applied to denote objects or show their number,
it is said to be used in denotation. It means number, or the reference of a term. As for example,
the term ‘man’ denotes several individuals like Plato Aristotle, Gandhi and others, and all men of
past, present and future. Denotation is also known as extension because it shows the extent or
range of objects to which a term is applied. All the objects to which a term is extended constitute
the extension of a term.

Terms are used not only to denote objects but also to show their qualities. In other words,
terms are used to describe the object. Every term has a meaning. It stands for certain qualities.
The term ‘man’ for example, shows the qualities of man like, ‘animality’ ‘rationality’ etc. The
function of suggesting qualities possessed by this object is known as connotation. Every term
denotes certain objects and connotes certain qualities. Connotation is also known as intension
because it refers to general qualities intended by a term. The extension of the term ‘college’ is all
the various colleges, while its intention is the various qualities describing the term, namely
educational institution giving higher education. When we say that connotation of a term consists
of the attributes which describe, a question arises as to which attributes are meant by the
connotation. There are three views regarding the exact meaning of connotation. 1) Objective

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view: according to this view connotation means all the attributes actually possessed by the object,
all known and unknown. But since in logic we are not concerned with anything unknown, this
view is not useful. 2) Subjective view: according to this view we must mention all the qualities
known to us. But the subjective position will cause variations regarding the actual qualities of the
entity and hence is not acceptable. 3) Logical view: according to this view connotation means
only those common, essential qualities of the object on account of which the term is applied to
the object. Non-essential qualities do not form part of the connotation even if they are common
to the whole class.

Let us see a few examples classifying denotation and connotation.

Examples: TERM DENOTES CONNOTES
Shoe All shoes a stiff outer covering of the foot
Knife All knives an instrument for cutting
Love No denotation Fondness, strong liking
Here are a few more examples of connotation and denotation of terms.
Common noun: ‘dog’
Denotation: all the animals to which the term can be applied.
Connotation: a wild or domestic animal of the same genus as the wolf.

Descriptive phrases always have a connotative meaning, but their denotation may be definite,
indefinite or totally absent. A definite description can be replaced by a proper noun. Example:
‘The proximate island to the south of India’ can be replaced by ‘Sri Lanka’. An indefinite
description can be replaced by a common noun. Examples: ‘Baby lion’ can be replaced by ‘cub’.
‘House for a dog’ can be replaced by ‘kennel’. Naturally if a term does not denote anything (like
the term ‘love’) the question of replacing by common noun does not arise.

2.3 TERMS AS A NAME OF CLASS

If we view a term as a name of a class, the connotation of the term defines the essence of that
class, while the denotation refers to the members of the class.
Examples: jet, medicine, disease, sports
All these words are terms or classes. Consider one example. Jet is a class of objects. A quality or
qualities which make an object jet constitute connotation. All connotative qualities together
determine a class. A class may have sub-classes.
Example 1: disease – tropical disease, heart disease, skin disease
While ‘disease’ is a class it has sub-classes like ‘tropical disease’, ‘heart disease’, ‘skin disease’
etc. These sub-classes may in turn have individual members or further sub-classes. For example,
the sub-class, ‘tropical disease’, has as members ‘malaria’, ‘typhoid’, ‘cholera’ etc. ‘Typhoid’ is
a sub-class having members like ‘para-typhoid’ etc.
Example 2: Class – ‘sports’
‘Outdoor sports’ is a sub-class of the class ‘sports’.
‘Cricket’ is a member of the sub-class ‘outdoor sports’.
The relation of the member ‘cricket’ to the class ‘sports’ or to the sub-class ‘outdoor sports’ is
class membership. The relation of the sub-class ‘outdoor sports’ to the class ‘sports’ is called
class inclusion.

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2.4 EXTENSION AND INTENSION

It is customary to use ‘extension’ instead of ‘denotation’ and ‘intension’ instead of ‘connotation’

when a term refers to a class. There is a reason why the words ‘extension’ and ‘intension’ are
used while we deal with classes. A class may have sub-classes, sub-classes with further sub-
classes, and so on as we have seen. By ‘extension’ we would then mean the range of sub-classes
or number of members within that class i.e., how extensive is the denotation of the term, or how
wide the denotation of a term is?

Intension means the sum of the qualities which describe a general name. The scope of
application of the term is to all the members of the class, and this signifies extension. The
qualities or properties of content or subject matter of the term signifies intension.
Let us take the term ‘box’ as example. The extensional significance of ‘box’ consists of the
objects to which this term may be applied. The intensional significance of the term ‘box’ is the
sum of attributes which defines the class.

2.5 INVERSE VARIATION

As the extension increases (covering more sub-classes), the intension decreases and if
extension decreases, intension increases. The same relation can be stated in this way also. If
intension increases, extension decreases and if intension decreases, extension increases. An
example will clarify the relation. Let us employ hypothetical numbers and apply general
knowledge. This is enough to understand the nature of relation.
Denotation 3 billion 1.1 billion 200 million 60 million

Terms Asians Indians South Indians Kannadigas

Intension 2 3 4 5

A person to be called an Asian must satisfy two requirements; 1) he or she must be a human
being 2) that person must be a permanent resident within the geographical boundaries of Asia.
Therefore the connotation of ‘Asian’ is 2. And the population of Asia is approximately 3 billion.
Therefore the denotation of the term ‘Asians’ is 3 billion. ‘Indians’ constitute a subclass of
Asians. Therefore the population of India must be naturally less than that of Asia. An Indian is
not only a human living in Asia, but also possesses an additional connotation. He must be a bona
fide citizen of India. Therefore the connotation of Indians is one more than that of ‘Asians’. The
student is advised to try to grasp the rest. It is easy to notice that in this arrangement as
denotation decreases connotation increases. If we reverse the arrangement, decrease in intension
is accompanied by increase in denotation. The student is advised to experiment to satisfy himself
or herself of the truth of this relation.

applicable to null classes.

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 Check Your Progress I

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer.

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.

1) Distinguish between word, concept and term.

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2) Explain different classification of words.

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2.6 CLASSIFICATION OF TERMS
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Terms can be classified as:
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Simple and composite terms
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Singular and general terms
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Collective and non-collective terms

2.6 CLASSIFICATION OF TERMS

Terms are classified as simple and composite; Singular and general; Collective and non-
collective; Absolute and relative; Concrete and abstract; and, Positive, negative and privative.

Simple and Composite Terms:

One worded terms are called simple terms. Examples: Agra, cat, library, etc.
Many worded terms are called composite or complex terms. Examples: highest mountain peak,
railway station, group of commandos, spring flowers, Royal Bengal tiger, good humor, wise men
of Nottingham etc.

Singular, General and Collective Terms:

When a term designates one individual or an object it is called singular term. Examples: Agra,
Qutub Minar, etc.
When a term designates many objects or individuals it is called general term. Examples: trees,
rivers, men, etc.
A term applicable only to a collection of objects, but not to any individual member, is called a
collective term. Examples: library, Indian army etc. The term ‘library’ is applicable to a set of
books, but you cannot pull out a book and call it a ‘library’. Similarly the term ‘Indian army’
refers to a set of soldiers and officers, but we cannot refer to one soldier or officer from the set as
‘Indian army’.

Absolute and Relative Terms:

A term is an absolute term when its meaning is understood with the help of that term only.
Examples: cows, river, etc.
A term is relative when its meaning is understood with the help of some other terms. Examples:
grandfather, wife, etc.

Concrete and Abstract Terms:

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 A concrete term refers to objects or a class which exist in space and time and which can be
perceived.
Examples: car, Eden garden, stars, fish etc.
An abstract term refers to qualities or entities which cannot be perceived.
Examples: God, demon, love, honesty, virtue, happiness, centaur etc.

Positive, Negative and Privative Terms:

A term is positive when it refers to the presence of qualities.
Examples: good, happy, big, train, flowers etc.
A term is negative when it refers to the absence of qualities.
Examples: non-violence, non-cooperation, non-vegetarian etc.
Note that a negative term does not imply an opposite term in the sense of ‘black-white’, ‘hot-
cold’, ‘rich-poor’ etc. Prefixes like un-, dis-, as in ‘undesirable’, ‘unbelievable’ etc., also do not
make a term negative; neither do suffixes like -less, ‘powerless’, ‘homeless’ etc., make term
negative. It is the meaning that determines its character.

A term is privative when it refers to the deprivation of a quality related to comfort or pleasure.
Examples: The term ‘deaf’ deprives an individual of the ‘pleasure of hearing’. ‘Pain’ deprives
one of being painless.

Check Your Progress II

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer.

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.

1) What do you mean by denotation and connotation of terms?

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2) Write in detail about the classification of terms.

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2.7 LET US SUM UP

In this unit we have attempted to understand various linguistic usages with which a student of
logic must be familiarized. We started the discussion by distinguishing concepts, words and

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terms. It was said that a concept is a general idea, while a word consists of a letter or
combination of letters conveying some meaning. A term, on the other hand is a word or a
combination of words which by itself is capable of being used as subject or predicate of a logical
proposition. Logicians use the words extension and intension. Some logicians try to give a
mathematical form of expression to the quantitative relation between connotation and denotation.
They say, ‘connotation and denotation vary in inverse ratio’. Further ,terms can be classified as
simple and compose terms, singular and general terms, collective and non-collective terms,
absolute and relative terms, concrete and abstract terms, positive, negative and privative, and
finally connotative and denotative terms.

2.8 KEY WORDS

Terminology: Terminology is the study, among other things, of how the terms come to be and
their interrelationships within a culture.
Criterion: Criterion, in Logic, is an issue or standard used regarding the starting point of an
argument or knowledge.

2.9 FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Nath Roy, Bhola. Text Book of Deductive Logic. Calcutta: S.C.Sankar & Soul Private Ltd, 1984.
Felice, Anne. Deduction. Cochin: 1982.

2.10 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Check Your Progress I

1. A concept is a general idea .A word consists of a letter or combination of letters conveying a

determinate meaning. A term is a word or combination of words which by itself is capable of
being used as subject or predicate of a proposition.

2. Words are classified as categorematic, syncategorematic and a-categorematic words.

Categorematic words are those which can by themselves be used as terms without the help of
other words. Syncategorematic words are those which cannot be used independently as terms,
but which can only be used along with other words, e.g. of, with, and, the, come etc.
Acatgegorematic words are words which express only exclamatory feelings or emotions.

Check Your Progress II

1. Denotation means number, or the reference of a term. It is also known as extension because it
shows the extent or range of objects to which a term is applied. The function of suggesting
qualities possessed by this objects is known as connotation.

2. Terms can be classified as:

Simple and composite terms
Singular and general terms
Collective land non-collective terms

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Absolute and relative terms
Concrete and abstract terms
Positive, negative and private terms
Connotative and non-connotative terms
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