What are things?

There’s different ways to say what something “is”. For example a hammer. You can talk about:

• its form
• what it does (“black boxed“), whether an intended purpose or not
• how it does what it does, the means of causing its consequences
• what it is made of
• how it is made
• its whole life history (which may include sitting around all day in a tool box)
• other properties (hard and strong, heavy)
• other categories it belongs to

For hammers, like for many things, an intensional definition can be developed. In the case of hammers I think it would mostly have to do with its function, what we use it to do, and how it works.

See also:

• ostensive definitions
• extensional definitions
• operational definitions

Though usually, a ton of these ways of looking at the thing come together into a concept or “construct”.  Even degree or probability might go into the concept.  An ice cream sandwich might be “a sandwich” in some sense, but when someone says they are bringing you “a sandwich” you’d be rather confused if it turned out to be an ice cream sandwich.  And yet clearly the two have enough similarity in form and purpose that it makes sense to use the name “ice cream sandwich” rather than “ice cream mystery object”, as if it were a wholly unfamiliar shape.

See also:

• Prototype Theory
• Constructs
• Concepts