Theoretical Definitions

These are definitions that give meaning to a word by attaching it to a theory which gives it a distinct characteristic to the subject it symbolizes. By doing so it supplies a way of understanding the term defined because of the link it has with the subject, and in doing so can create a many different possibilities through the acknowledgement of this subject. An example of this given in our textbook is through the word "heat" and how it is used in accordance with the kinetic theory. "'Heat' means the energy associated with the random motion of the molecules of a substance." In defining the word this way, it not only proposes that the reason why the temperature increases is due to the fact molecules of the substance are speeding up, but also that this was experimented on thoroughly to get the results. It basically means taht this definition of heat was the stimulus behind the whole theory of heat. This form of definition is like its stipulant counterpart in they way that it can be neither true nor false. However the difference lies in the fact that theoretical definitions are considered proposals because they give the person using them a different way of analyzing the phenomenon, the example being heat, and since proposals have no truth value to them, neither can the theoritical definitions being used like proposals.