Why are philosophers so caught up with defining words? Why do they feel it is so important to definite answers to what is color, courage, virtue, knowledge, reality? When I speak of any of these things the people that I have talked to understand what I am saying without any further description. I understand that these words may be vague and encompass many differing views, but their use has a point. I can say someone was virtuous and people know that I am saying that the person followed their cultures morals. When talking about someone’s courage on the battlefield, you do not need to say that even though he did not want to charge the machine gun because he knew he could be shot and killed he did it anyway, you say he courageously ran towards it. Color is merely a one-word description of the differences interpreted by your eye and brain between foreign objects that you see. You can change color but you cannot take it away.
I am not trying to create a single definition for these words, I just want to show the reason they exist. These words definitions are best shown through the other details in the story that the person using them tells.
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