Philosophy, Greek for “the love of
wisdom”, is one of (if not the) oldest disciplines in the realm of academia,
and its questions and discoveries have influenced nearly every science and
liberal study since. The rose-colored glasses philosophy creates around the
newly opened eyes of a beginner philosopher, however, is quickly dissipated
when the official style trumps into the picture; turning what once was a
creative way to relay wisdom to the masses, to a methodological nightmare of
proper word usage so as to disallow future refutations. Within the sphere of
the philosophical community, though the end goal is to achieve new,
revolutionary knowledge, accessible to all, the discipline has become a battle
ground for supposed great thinkers so as to establish who is (or at least
seems) indubitably correct; wielding the official style as their weapon of
choice.
For
a moment, let us revisit early philosophy and perhaps one of the greatest and
well-known thinkers of all time: Socrates.
Although Socrates is possibly the most famous philosopher to have ever
existed, it must be noted that he vehemently opposed putting any of his
lectures into writing. It could be said
that this move on the part of Socrates further prohibits us from understanding his specific opinion, since all we know
of him and his ideas are through the works of others, namely his student Plato;
yet, the reason for this, as believed by historians, is due to his admiration
of plain language usage and his habit of impromptu lectures. This then lead to
the genre of the Socratic Dialogue, in which writers used the Socratic method
of cross-examination in a dialogue style so as to explain their beliefs;
knowing that it is easier to be understood using plain speech that is typically
used in normal conversation instead of the official style. The style of the Socratic Dialogue was
genius: instead of necessitating crazy lingo in order to illustrate a complex
notion, one would simply give a foreword as to who/what was involved in the
conversation for context and let the dialogue speak for itself, radiating truth
and wisdom from an everyday situation.
At the time, it was desired for one’s opinions to be widely heard and
understood so as to spread the wealth of knowledge, but, nowadays, it seems as
though this ideology has been replaced in favor of overly complicated, clever
speech to distort weak arguments as strong.
The
latter of the two principles following this concern as listed above, the idea
of making a weak argument strong through the use of clever speech, was actually
one of the main formal charges on which Socrates was accused of in the trial
dictated in Plato’s The Apology. To those who are not familiar with The Apology, it is said to have taken
place in 399 BCE (Socrates was 70), and, it is important to note that, contrary
to what is implied in the title, the work is not an apology by Socrates, but
rather his defense against the Athenian courts who threaten the death penality
for impiety and the corruption of Athenian youth. The dialogue begins after the preliminary
speech given by Meletos (the plaintiff, so to speak), in which he illustrates
to the jurors what Socrates is indicted of and why he is guilty of those charges. We are not sure of exactly what Meletos said
since it was not in The Apology
itself, but, based off Socrates’ later statements, one can assume it was a very
eloquent, well prepared, and officially-worded speech.
This
is the point that Socrates first acknowledges in the course of his defense, the
fact that the accusers are utilizing clever speech so as to convince the jurors
of the wrongness in Socrates’ “clever speech,” he states:
“How you have felt, O men of Athens, at
hearing the speeches of my accusers, I cannot tell; but I know that their
persuasive words almost made me forget who I was – such was the effect of them;
and yet they have hardly spoken a word of truth. But many as their falsehoods were, there was
one of them which quite amazed me…they certainly did appear to be most
shameless in saying this, unless by the force of eloquence they mean the force
of truth; for then I do indeed admit that I am eloquent. But in how different a way from theirs! […]
You shall hear from me the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their
manner, in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No indeed!
But I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment;
for I am certain that this is right, and that at my time of life I ought not to
be appearing before you, O men of Athens, in the character of a juvenile orator
– let no one expect this of me.” (Plato, The
Apology, c. 360 BCE; some sections omitted)[i]
He, then, asks for the jury’s
forgiveness for his ignorance concerning the official style that is used in the
courts; pleading that they listen to what
he is saying as opposed to how he is
saying it. Throughout his defense,
Socrates repeatedly asks the court for forgiveness at the frankness of his
speech as it is (supposedly) completely improvised, bringing to light another
famous Socratic virtue: modesty.[ii] Socrates’
humility and use of plain language, however, did not aid him in trial; he was
voted guilty, and accepted his punishment and drank the hemlock.
It
is unfortunate that such a humble approach to philosophy did not trickle more
into the moderns, but it seems as though it is more important to be (or at
least seem) “right” amongst peers in the professional community than it is to
be understood. This problem is then exacerbated
as the philosophical concept becomes more obscure. Take the German philosopher Edmund Husserl
for example, who is considered to be the father of Phenomenology[iii]
(a word that is pretty intimidating in and of itself), though he is not only an
expert, but a founder of the field,
the concepts he tries to relay through his works are unnecessarily befuddling
due to his language use. Consider the
introduction to the second section of his work, Cartesian Meditations:
“But admittedly, when we let our thoughts
hasten on in this manner, to the conception of a phenomenological science
destined to become philosophy, we immediately run into the already mentioned
difficulties raised by the fundamental methodological demand for an apodictic
evidence of the ego.” (Husserl, Cartesian
Meditations, 1931)
By the hammer of Thor that is quite the mouthful for one
sentence! To be sure though, most sane
people would give up after this sentence, and that’s probably why Husserl is
not known outside the philosophy department. It is too difficult for people to easily grasp
(it received a Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score of -5.7 with an average grade
level of 27.8), so they don’t care enough to read it. To use Landham’s Paramedic Method, this
paragraph is translated as:
“It is hard to make
Phenomenological science a philosophy because there is no definite evidence of
the ego.”
Now, I know this is still a pretty
confusing passage, but at least now we know what Husserl is getting at. I was able to cut the sentence down from 44 words
to 18 words and raised the reading ease to 33.5, so not too shabby. However, it did take me a while to decode
this, and it would be awful (and unbelievably time-consuming) to have to apply
this to every sentence in a 157-page book.
Why
do philosophers (or people in general) use this crazy language style if it only
pushes the curious away from their works?
The answer is not as black and white as someone doing a quick Google
search would hope it to be: the motives may be a desire for professionalism so
that one sounds smart and credible amongst their peers, or perhaps one desires
to hide their own confusion on the topic within abstract concepts and awkward
sentence structure/word usage. Either way you slice it, the average Dick or
Jane is not going to bother going past the first page; philosophy written in
the official style ultimately pushes newcomers away. For example, I gave Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations to my roommate (an
intelligent woman, I must note) and told her to read until she got lost, she
stopped after the first paragraph and said, “Danni, I don’t know why you read
this crap, it’s a whole lot about nothing useful in the real world. I wanted to stop reading after the first
sentence.” I tried to defend the
discipline of philosophy and myself, but all that came out was more
indiscernible mumbo jumbo that hurt my case more than anything else; I have
been conditioned to write (and, consequently, speak) about philosophy using only the official style because that is
generally how it is presented.
To
be sure, plainness and modesty in speech does not make a thought wiser, more
honest, credible, or effective necessarily; however, it seems as though it could be more effectual, in the sense
that one’s philosophical ideas would be more approachable by those who are not
absorbed and fluent in the field itself.
Philosophy, I feel like more than many other disciplines, has a very
“elitist” feel about it; unfortunately, leading many to believe that all those
who “properly” consider themselves a philosopher must be a sort of child-prodigy or baby genius character. Although I do like to toot my own horn and
accept this as some roundabout compliment, it is disappointing how much of an
effect this superficial standard has on prospective newcomers. Even those who may indeed have a natural knack
for philosophy become dissuaded when they go to a PHL 101 course and have no
idea what’s going on. One could say that
this may be the fault of the professor, which is entirely possible; however, I
feel this problem is rooted much earlier.
It is a rare thing in today’s world for a pre-pubescent teen to up and
decide one day to read some Epicurean thought because it sounds exhilarating, or for a child to blow off a playmate
because they were so captivated by Kant.
The bottom line is: we all have to start somewhere, and, I feel as
though, if more philosophy were to be written in the plain language (i.e.
additional entrances on the ground floor), more people would possess a desire
to seek philosophy (and, subsequently, the love of wisdom which ‘philosophy’
denotes) if not as a formal study, then at least as a mentally stimulating
pastime.
I
do agree that, sometimes, with more abstract or “deep” concepts, that the
official style (or some derivative thereof) may indeed be necessary so as to
ensure the correct interpretations of the words that an author has used. Heidegger, for example, uses hyphens in his
“wordy” concepts so as to prevent misinterpretations, as seen in the passage
below:
“This kind of being of disclosedness of being-in-the-world,
however, also dominates being-with-one-another as such. The
other is initially “there” in terms of what they have heard about him, what
they say and know about him. ‘Idle talk’ initially intrudes itself into
the midst of primordial being-with-one-another. Everyone
keeps track of the other, initially and first of all, watching how he will
behave, what he will say to something. Being-with-one-another
in the ‘they’ is not at all a self-contained, indifferent side-by-sideness,
but a tense, ambiguous keeping track of each other, a secretive, reciprocal
listening-in. Under the mask of the for-one-another, the against-one-another
is at play.” (Heidegger, Being and Time,
1927; my emphases and italicizations)
Now, if
you were able to follow this, and I would be extremely envious of you if you
could sans context, it is basically the idea behind Mean Girls or concepts that anyone who has gone through the typical
high school experience would know: people like to get into one another’s business,
and most people, even friends, are two-faced in regards to one another. Why did Heidegger have to explain it so
crazily then? It is because, if I were
to write the explanatory sentence I gave as a philosophical argument in and of
itself, other philosophers would not take it seriously and, if they did, they
would surely shred it to bits due to all the hidden implications (loopholes,
formal and informal fallacies, contradictions, etc.) that can easily be
spotted/produced. Before the quote
listed above was stated by Heidegger in Being
and Time, there are about 15-20 pages explaining each of the wordy, hyphened concepts so that his asserted
conclusions appear to follow necessarily, making it more difficult for a sound
refutation to be given by another. This
is all fine and dandy in “professional” philosophy, but, considering the sort
of enlightening concepts Heidegger has in the work concerning his “authentic”
way of living, it seems as though it would be beneficial for him to use the
plain language so as to better enrich the lives of others.
With that being said, it is
something to be revered if one is able to dictate a crazy complex thought in a
clear and concise way, and few are able to do it; the official style has become
that ingrained in the “professional” philosopher’s mind. However, this should then be one of the aims
of written philosophy, or, if nothing else, at least something to consider in
the writing process so as to sweeten the juice.
It is in the definition of being a philosopher (and should
consequently be in their very nature) to love
wisdom and the search for truth.
Implicit in this idea is inspiring later philosophers to add on,
critique, or create new knowledge concerning their established works or to
devise an entirely new philosophical perspective. If one truly loves wisdom and has found
“truth,” one will want it known to all[iv].
[i]
Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease score of 71.4 with an average grade level of 9.3.
[ii]
Socrates is known in history to have been a peasant, wandering the streets
without shoes and a dirty toga, who gave lectures in the form of dialogue and
stories to youth in the public sects of the city of Athens. Unlike the Sophists (those who were formally
accusing him), Socrates did not accept money for teaching as he felt that
wisdom is something to be shared with all, yet he understood that there was
always more to learn. In The Apology, Socrates recollects a story
in which the Oracle at Delphi told him that he is the wisest of all men;
Socrates doubted this highly and went to those who believed themselves to be
wise, only to discover that they were all pretentious jerks in a counterfeited
ivory tower. It was through his
cross-examining that he understood what the Oracle meant: he is wise in knowing
that he knows nothing.
[iii]
Phenomenology is a philosophical approach focused on the study of consciousness
and the objects of direct experience.
[iv]
Think of religions, do they not wish to inspire the masses with their supposed
truths? Not to compare philosophy to a
religion but it certainly is a particular way of life guided by the desire for
wisdom and truth.
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