Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

In 1921, the Cambridge logician W.E. Johnson introduced the contemporary use of the terms ‘determinate’ and ‘determinable’ into the philosophical lexicon by citing a pair of exemplars:I propose to call such terms as colour and shape determinables in relation to such terms as red and circular which will be called determinates.(1921; p. 174)The determinable–determinate relation thus holds between pairs of predicables or properties, and Johnson proceeded to characterize it by citing four of its characteristic marks or features.First, determinate properties come in families, and to each such family of determinates correspond sone and only one determinable from which it ‘emanates’.[Any] one determinable such as colour is distinctly other than such a determinable as shape or tone: i.e. colour is not adequately described as indeterminate, since it is, metaphorically speaking, that from which the specific determinates, red, yellow, green, etc., emanate; while from shape emanates another completely different series of determinates.(1921, pp. 174–5)Second, determinables and determinates plainly differ in scope. Determinable properties are broader or more general than their corresponding determinates; determinate properties, narrower or more specific than their super ordinate determinables. Determinables and determinates of a given family thus form a hierarchy of scope-inclusions, after the ... log in or subscribe to read full text