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A comment on Against the definition of types. Parent comment

Re:Against the definition of types by shasta on Thursday May 14, 2015 @04:40PM (#9547455)
His summary ends with:

"Rather than seeking the elusive definition of what is a type (which does not exist), I believe that we should look for innovative ways to think about and work with types that do not require an exact formal definition."

So he doesn't want to stop at your point 1, but rather wants to find generalizations that apply to the commonality between these variations.

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Re:Against the definition of types by nosideeffects on Thursday May 14, 2015 @04:50PM (#9547505)
I thought he was calling for exactly the opposite? A generalization that applies between contexts would require formal definition, no?
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Re:Against the definition of types by AnimalMuppet on Thursday May 14, 2015 @05:18PM (#9547635)
No. There may be some magic formal definition that would work between contexts. Until we have such a definition, though, he says it's better (at least between contexts) to work off of an informal, inexact definition, and to be aware that you are doing so.
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