Concepts, like geometric primitives, are best defined by their construction
Evidence
One might inquire about the deļ¬nition of a concept. Instead of giving a deļ¬nition (see Adcock 1998 for a survey), I prefer to deļ¬ne them implicitly through a discussion of how to construct them. This is roughly analogous to geometric primitives like point and line which are deļ¬ned via theorems about them. ā Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 58
Categorization
- XREF: The geometry analogy links to axiomatic method ā treating concepts as primitives whose meaning emerges from the theorems (constructive procedures) built on them.