DYNAMIC-SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY


Interdialogging with Ed on:

CLARITY OF LANGUAGE

ED, on Dec 18 1997 you wrote at Serendip Forum,

I am a little surprised that Dr. J. Ghitis would be attacking Willard Quine (Dec. 17) in connection with the subject of verbal clarity.

Ed, I actually wrote to Daphna,

"This week I read about Quine's 67 years production...My impression was that he has been wasting his and other's time. I demand clarity."

Ed, I was bored just reading about Quine's frightening outpour! And just on the subject of Being! He couldn't have been clear if he had to work 67 yr. hacking on the same subject.
Although I must confess that fortunately I've not read any of his, I should have known something of it, had it been of real import. This post of yours is prompting me to write in the near future a very concise essay on Being and Existing, showing the cosmic difference between these two philosophical concepts. For such purpose, I'll have to delve on the Torah's two given God's Names.

After all, Quine is primarily known as a logician, not as a philosopher in the classic sense, and his writing is generally a model of clarity and precision.

I knew that Quine is a logician, interested in analytical and linguistic analysis. I did not criticize the clarity and precision of a writing I have not perused. I would agree on this point, had he written just one treatise on the subject of being. Allow me to try and make just one point here:
Quine says that being is anything that can be perceived or conceived by the mind. All right, but what happens? We had Plato with the Ideas or Forms, actually concepts. Then there came the complication of Meta-Physics, signifying what Aristotle wrote after his Physics. Then we have the concept of Metaphysics as popularly understood. Yet the philosophers of Being borrowed that word for their own benefit, calling it Ontology!
Now allow me to say the following: Existing is absolutely different from Being, yet nobody has dealt with this crucial philosophical concept, on which I intend to deal sometime.

Of course, that brings up a problem with the "clarity of thought" approach. Those who are interested in clarity of thought above all usually have nothing or little to say. And for that reason they don't seem very productive. They publish a lot but when all is said and done it does not mean that much and that may be Quine's downfall.

This is an unwarranted generalization, except when relating to Quine.

Analytic philosophy also is a good case in point. It was significant only in what it rejected (i.e. most of the work of past philosophers)...

That's quite an accomplishment! It was an offshoot of the Positivistic Philosophy, from which it is actually inseparable.

...but it did not really have that much to say, and it could be rated as one of the most sterile and unproductive schools of thought since the 14th century and the time of the medieval Scholastics.

How so? I must confess again that fortunately I did not read Wittgenstein's Tractatus, which he preferred not to have written. I'll refer you to my post 'Space and Time,' where I mention other luminaries, like Russell and Whitehead, which I have not read either. I have stressed that to me the Positivistic Analytic Linguistic Philosophy can be zipped as "Be unambiguous!"
The exact words in my letter to Daphna were,

"Analytic and Linguistic Philosophy, a derivative of the Positivistic Philosophy, can be summarized as: 'Be unambiguous!'"

It should be clear, then, that further dwelling on this discussion will be "sterile and unproductive." As Daphna said, and you will agree, we should avoid becoming too sophisticated. Serendip Forum is not a place for an "exclusive club." Your posts, Ed, as those of other contributors, have been a source of inspiration to me!

Clear, concise language only has a limited applicability in some of the most basic areas of science, physics, chemistry, and such like. It works out very clumsily in social sciences like economics, sociology, or history. It can be done but unfortunately it does not mean much. Endorsing it rather indiscriminately could even be considered rather naive.

How can clear language, concise as it ought to be, have a limited applicability? Ambiguity is the province of literature and politics. (see "JUST WRITING")

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