| 释义 |
▪ I. posit, v.|ˈpɒzɪt|
Also 7 -ite.
[f. L. posit-, ppl. stem of pōnĕre to place, put, lay down.]
1. trans. To put in position; to set, dispose, or situate; to place. (Chiefly in pa. pple. or pass.)
1647Lilly Chr. Astrol. To Rdr. 3 To vary their shape as they are posited in Signe and house. 1664Power Exp. Philos. iii. 168 Then would those parts..affect this..Situation, howsoever the Loadstone was posited. a1693Urquhart's Rabelais iii. xx. 166 He posited his left Hand wholly open. 1756T. Amory Buncle (1770) I. 87 To see how things were posited at home. 1871Tyndall Fragm. Sci. vi. (1872) 114 The blocks..were moved and posited by a power external to themselves. 1886W. Graham Soc. Problem 161 Classes..connected with the production of wealth or positing it where it is wanted.
2. To put down or assume as a fact; to lay down as a basis of argument, etc.; to affirm the existence of; to postulate. Chiefly in Logic and Philos.
1697tr. Burgersdicius his Logic ii. xii. 52 To Posit, or put the Antecedent or Consequent, is no more than to assume it. Ibid. xvii. 78 The Effect being posited, it follows that either there is a Cause Efficient, or else, that there has been one. 1709–29[see posited]. 1847Lewes Hist. Philos. IV. 167 Either the Ego must posit the Non-Ego wilfully and consciously..or [etc.]. 1877E. Caird Philos. Kant i. 157 In so far as anything is a cause, it posits something different from itself as an effect. 1898J. A. Hobson Ruskin 105 The crude dualism which Huxley posits.
Hence ˈposited ppl. a.; ˈpositing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1665–6Phil. Trans. I. 215 An account of two unusually posited Rainbows seen. 1709–29V. Mandey Syst. Math., Arith. 60 If one of the posited False Numbers is deficient from the Tree. 1854Geo. Eliot tr. Feuerbach's Essence Christianity xxii. 213 This negativing of limits by the imagination is the positing of omniscience as a divine power and reality. 1895Daily Chron. 6 Nov. 2/7 His hatred of compromise, his perpetual positing of the moral dilemma—‘all or nothing’. 1899A. E. Garvie Ritschlian Theol. iii. iii. 82 A law, a thing posited, points back the understanding to the positing spirit and will. 1967Listener 5 Oct. 430/1 If subject does not respond to direct approach try seemingly more casual positings of kindred questions at the macro-level.
▪ II. posit, n. Philos.|ˈpɒzɪt|
[f. the vb.]
A statement which is made on the assumption that it will prove valid (see quots. 1949).
1949Hutten & Reichenbach tr. H. Reichenbach's Theory of Probability ix. 373 A posit is a statement with which we deal as true, although the truth value is unknown. Ibid., We do not say B will occur, but we posit B... The word ‘posit’ is used here in the same sense as the word ‘wager’ or ‘bet’... We do not want to say..that it is true that the horse will win, but we behave as though it were true by staking money on it. 1953W. V. Quine From Logical Point of View ii. 45 Physical objects, small and large, are not the only posits... The abstract entities which are the substance of mathematics are another posit in the same spirit. 1976Sci. Amer. Mar. 119/3 He proposed a set of five posits about the structure of the world that he believed were sufficient to justify induction. |