I am rather surprised that you expect clarity from a professional
philosopher. Muddled concepts and definitions are nowhere more at
home than among philosophers who are not mathematicians... Just
look around at today's philosophers, Schelling, Hegel, Nees von
Esenbeck and Co. Don't their definitions make your hair stand on
end? Or, in classical philosophy, read the kinds of things which
"stars" like Plato and others (I except Aristotle) gave as
explanations. Even Kant is often not much better: his distinction
between analytic and syntetic propositions is, I believe, one of
those which either turns on a triviality or is false.
C.F. Gauss,
From a letter to the astronomer Schumacher,
November 1, 1844