intension
/ɪnˈtɛnʃ(ə)n
/noun
1 Logic The internal content of a concept. Often contrasted with extension.All versions of externalism have in common that intensions don't determine extensions....
- In the language of nominalism, the terms ‘black’ and ‘white’ purport to have mutually exclusive intensions and should therefore have mutually exclusive extensions, which they do not.
- On the other hand, two sentences have the same intension if they are logically equivalent, i.e., their equivalence is due to the semantic rules of the language.
2 [mass noun] archaic Resolution or determination.
Derivatives
intensional
- Logics which attempt to display the logical properties of intensional contexts are called intensional logics.
- But there is what philosophers (at least this philosopher) think of as an extensional and an intensional way of describing our perceptions.
- There are sentences which are neither extensional nor intensional; for example, belief-sentences.
intensionally
- Such a concern description is defined intensionally as a set of regular expressions.
- It is made up of concepts and knowledge primitives intensionally contained in it.
Origin
Early 17th century (also in the sense 'straining, stretching'): from Latin intensio(n-), from intendere (see intend). sense 1 dates from the mid 19th century.