Can you define 'own' without using another word for it, (belong, possess, etc.?) (And I mean 'own' as in possess, not in 'I can do it on my own.') 'Cause I know everyone sort of knows what it means and entails and whatever. But, what does it really mean to 'own' something? And how can you even 'own' something? (I unserstand it's an abstract idea.)

Let's suppose my general points are even slightly well-taken. Marks asks (1) whether rights are natural or (more positivistically) grounded, say, in social convention, and (2) whether (or when/if) a person has the right(s) about which he speaks. But he doesn't ask what a right is or what the word "right" means. As Vonnegut would say (and has said): "And so it goes." I'd like to know what the sentence "I have a right to decide the fate of X" means -- without (re)turning to "It's mine!" Maybe we should ask: which is more basic, analytically: ownership or rights?

I reply only to: "Can you define 'own' without using another word for it (belong, possess, etc.)?" Make the question more general. Can we define "X" without using other words W, Y, Z , etc.? I often/usually define an "X" by using other words, W, Y, Z. Now, if you tell me that W, Y, and Z don't help you understand the original "X," or that I have not yet succeeded in defining "X," I might try to define W, Y, and Z -- using yet other words. We must avoid a circle, that is, eventually defining "X" in terms of "X" (say, were we to define Z in terms of A and then A in terms of X). Suppose that we define words only by using other words--this looks like a hermeneutic regress. Maybe there are words that are "self-defined" and so do not need to be defined by other words. Then we escape the regress. Are there any such words? Or maybe some words get defined not by words but in some other way--by pointing to the object named by the word (an ostensive or demonstrative defintion). Then we escape the regress. Must all...