Jose asked:

Why do philosophers always begin with etymology when they define a word?

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Simple. The origin of word tells us a great deal about the concepts being invoked when the word is
used.

For example, if we wish to analyse 'democracy', but do not examine the etymology of the word, we
would conclude that democracy was, by definition representative; that it involves things like
parliaments, presidents or prime ministers and so on; and things of that ilk. Here we are being
descriptive. We are taking the meaning of the concept to be that which it is commonly applied to. If
we do this, mistakes, such as claiming that the old DDR (East Germany) was democratic because it
had the word 'democratic' in its name, occur.

If we examine the etymology of 'democracy' we see that it comes from the French democratie via late
Latin from Greek democratia,from demos'the people' plus kratia'power, rule'.

We therefore know far more about the concept than had we not examined the etymology. We may
even be able to assess whether something is democratic or not. Without the etymology, all that was
called democratic was democratic, which is a clear misunderstanding.

Finally, etymology is interesting.

Steven Bullock
University of Stirling
s.a.bullock@stir.ac.uk