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My Personal Philosophy of Philosophy

Posted in Friendly Philosophy

[Y]ou must translate every bit of your Theology into the vernacular. This is very troublesome and it means you can say very little in half an hour, but it is essential. It is also of the greatest service to your own thought. I have come to the conviction that if you cannot translate your thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts were confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood one’s own meaning.

I just discovered that quotation in C. S. Lewis, “Christian Apologetics”  (God in the Dock, ed. Walter Hooper [W. B. Eerdmans, 1970, 2001], 98). If I had a philosophical code, what Lewis says here (replacing “Theology” with “philosophy”) would be the first in my list of pledges or demands-I-make-on-myself .

Here’s why:

  • Jargon is elitist and exclusionary. If I refuse to speak in language you can understand, I show you a baffling amount of disrespect.  If you are my student, furthermore, I violate my duty  to actually teach you if I lecture in jargon.
  • Jargon is also cowardly. In obscuring what I am saying, and thus what I mean, it allows me to hide from criticism (both my own and others’).
  • Moreover, jargon is cheap. It allows me to play with words instead of actually reasoning. And because it allows me to seem like I’m reasoning — while not actually requiring me to think — it is bad for me (like Lewis says).

Thus, if I do not speak in the vernacular when I teach, I violate my duty — and thus I violate the principles of justice. If I do not write in the vernacular, I violate the principles of courage. And if I cannot translate my thoughts into the vernacular, I fail to be intellectually virtuous.

4 Comments

  1. Allen Stairs
    Allen Stairs

    I’m sympathetic to the general idea, but I’d still say it depends. A lot of jargon is shorthand. For example: suppose I’m doing phil of science and I’m talking about explanations. If I’m not allowed to use the word “explanandum” as shorthand, I’m going to waste a lot of words to very little purpose, and probably annoy me reader along the way. I could come up with a non-Latinate word, but if it stuck, it would become part of the specialized vocabulary of this particular topic. I guess I don’t think a philosopher who uses the word “explanandum” is being unjust, or cowardly or more generally unvirtuous.

    Also, BTW: “vernacular” is not a vernacular term. 😛

    March 12, 2015
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  2. I should’ve added: “I make an exception for jargon-qua-shorthand that either (a) I’ve clearly defined in the vernacular for my audience before using it (that way, I’m actually teaching people, inducting them into the inner circle, instead of excluding them) or (b) it would just annoy my audience to define in the vernacular because we’re all already in agreement about what vernacular phrase the jargon is shorthand for.” But I was in the middle of an unvirtuous tirade and nuance would’ve ruined the whole self-righteous tone of the post.

    Good point about “vernacular.” I shake my fist at myself in disappointment.

    March 12, 2015
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  3. Josh
    Josh

    What of knowledgeable laypersons out side of philosophy class setting who are sensitive to breakdowns to logical steps? Such a person reading this post would I think like to extend what counts as “jargon”. I often find it hard to communicate to a knowledgeable person or a group who has not flexed their logical muscles in philosophic training! There is always someone (a musician, or a painter to be more specific) at a cocktail party sort of setting who is going to accuse use of jargon when logical steps are laid out. I even tried to be painstakingly boring in counting the steps but then I quickly find myself in a one-on-one with everyone else quickly losing interest. Sigh, I guess I am just ranting lol.

    April 20, 2015
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  4. Josh: Yeah, you can’t win sometimes. You try to make things really explicit, but it takes so much longer to say, and thus makes people suspicious that you’re trying to distract them with wordiness.

    April 27, 2015
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