Concept

Description

Overview

Description is any type of communication that aims to make vivid a place, object, person, group, or other physical entity. It is one of four rhetorical modes (also known as modes of discourse), along with exposition, argumentation, and narration.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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1. The chief importance of knowledge by description is that it enables us to pass beyond the limits of our private experience. In spite of the fact that we can only know truths which are wholly composed of terms which we have experienced in acquaintance, we can yet have knowledge by description of things which we have never experienced.

   Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy

   The chapter “CHAPTER V. KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE AND KNOWLEDGE BY DESCR…” is titled for Description; states what Description is.

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2. It would seem that, when we make a statement about something only known by description, we often _intend_ to make our statement, not in the form involving the description, but about the actual thing described. That is to say, when we say anything about Bismarck, we should like, if we could, to make the judgment which Bismarck alone can make, namely, the judgment of which he himself is a constituent.

   Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays

   The chapter “KNOWLEDGE BY ACQUAINTANCE AND KNOWLEDGE BY DESCRIPTION” is titled for Description; names Description several times.

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3. Secondly. An object is described by part of its definition, as when, e.g., man is described as a living being or as a rational being. This kind of description includes the necessary connection [of the two ideas]; for when we say that every man is rational we mean by it that every being which has the characteristics of man must also have reason. All agree that this kind of description is inappropriate in reference to…

   Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed

   Names Description several times; states what Description is.

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Philosophers who discussed Description

• Saul Kripke
• G. E. M. Anscombe

Related ideas

• Argumentation theory
• Ars Poetica (Horace)
• Anno Domini
• Latin
• Anthropomorphism
• Bertrand Russell
• Theory of descriptions
• Relevance

Place in the tradition

Part of Mental representation.

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