Exercises for “Elements of Logic”
Chapter VI

Extension and Intension

Claudio Gutierrez and Luis G. Coronado

Translated from Spanish by Inés Gutiérrez


  1. Distinguish the collective terms from the proper names in the following table.

    Mankind
    divine mercy
    animal
    agrarian reform
    science
    Elektra
    river
    University of Delaware
    God
    white horse
    American
    Social Security
    public schools
    Costa Rican
    Paris
    Napoleon’s white horse
    good
    Beatrice
    black
    White Horse
    Einstein
    this piece of paper

  2. Indicate the denotation and connotation of each one of the following terms.

    U.S.A. political party
    Costa Rican writer
    East Coast fluvial port
    planet
    metal
    O.A.S. member nation
    (your town's) high school
    automobile make
    capital sin
    prime number under 50

  3. Arrange the following terms in decreasing order, according to their intension:

    1. narrative, fiction, literary work, writing, psychological fiction.

    2. U.S.A. inhabitant, human being, New Yorker, North American, inhabitant of the Americas.

  4. Arrange the following terms in decreasing order, according to their extension.

    1. vertebrate, Siamese, animal, cat, mammal.

    2. Congress member, citizen over 21, elected official, House of Representative member.

  5. Define some of the following terms by means of proximate genus and specific differentia, using as genus words from the list itself. Use as definiendum or genus the largest possible number of words proposed, choosing freely any necessary specific differentiae.

    boat
    man
    hotel
    husband
    epic
    animal
    pilot
    vessel
    physics
    battleship
    building
    ode
    science
    poetry
    motel
    worker
    literature
    marine

  6. In the following definitions, indicate the rule or rules broken by each:

    1. Duty is the concept of an action to which one is obliged.

    2. "Wisdom is something different from everything else". (Heraclitus, Frag. 108)

    3. An airplane is a machine used for flying.

    4. A scholar is a person associated to a school.

    5. Man is an animal with musical sensitivity.

Copyright © 1968-2006 Claudio Gutierrez and Luis G. Coronado