extensional, a.
(ɛkˈstɛnʃənəl)
[f. prec. + -al1.]
1. Of, pertaining to, or possessed of extension.
| 1647 H. More Song of Soul ii. ii. iii. xx, But that some virtue's not extentionall May thus be proved. 1667 ― Div. Dial. ii. xxxiv. (1668) 149 You run always into these extensional Phantasms. 1773 in Johnson; whence in mod. Dicts. |
2. Logic. Of, or relating to, logical extension (cf. extension 8 b); esp., concerned with the objects denoted rather than with the predicates applied.
| 1852 H. L. Mansel Aldrich (ed. 2) App. 221 In this respect it [sc. Aristotelian Induction] is synthetical, the parts and whole being viewed in their logical or extensional relation. 1903 B. Russell Princ. Math. §68 Thus Brown and Jones are a class, and Brown singly is a class. This is the extensional genesis of classes. 1926 F. P. Ramsey in Proc. London Math. Soc. XXV. 348 In calling mathematics extensional we mean that it deals not with predicates but with classes, not with relations in the ordinary sense but with possible correlations, or ‘relations in extension’. |