Philosophical Terminology

The question has been brought to me before, why use all of this philosophical terminology? There is a reason, and that reason is to write with the necessary degree of precision for the best possible elucidation. Take these two examples, the first one I wrote with very little thought behind it, and the second I wrote after further reflection.

I would also like to add that the extremely subjective view of truth that Bill O'Reilly espouses will result in a form of relativism that O'Reilly seems to dislike when it goes against his version of "Traditionalism".

I would like to add that the epistemological relativism that Bill O’Reilly espoused during his interview with Richard Dawkins will contradict the ethical absolutism that he espouses all of the time.

The first statement of mine is written in such a manner that people will be able to pick it apart. To start out with, “extremely subjective view of truth” is not very clear. It could be said that just because truth is subjective, that doesn’t negate it being objective. I could have subjective contents of consciousness which correspond to an objective epistemic ground. Also, adding the adverb “extremely” will not help, it adds nothing to the meaning of subjective. Also when I said relativism in the first sentence, I was not clear in describing what type of relativism he is espousing. Also, it was a problem to use Traditionalism for a theoretical backing to explain the type of relativism I meant. When O’Reilly uses Traditionalism, he is clearly using it as a persuasive definition; he doesn’t have any of the theoretical backing that Evola does when he used the term Traditionalism. The problem in the first statement is that it is open to heavy interpretation, because of the lack of precision that comes from the words used.

The second statement of mine escapes many of these problems. The first is that epistemological relativism has a very precise meaning because of both the words are part of a tradition in which a heavy amount of philosophical theory gives meaning to both of the words, and there was a sophist named Protagoras whose philosophy has elements which give an exact meaning to the terms. The reality is that epistemological relativism is univocal in its meaning. It is also true of ethical absolutism that it has a very precise meaning because of the philosophical theory behind these two words. It is true that there are different proponents of ethical absolutism ranging from Kant to supposed divine commands. Though for the sake of the argument, it is clear from watching O’Reilly that he has an ethical absolutism based upon this black and white view of reality that reminds me of a 1980’s wrestling match. The main point is that the language used in the second statement is very precise, and that is due to the use of philosophical terminology.

The goal is to write things in such a way that an educated audience will be able to discern the meaning. I was reading The Principle Upanishads yesterday, and I read a section which compared the Vedantic metaphysics to the Neoplatonic metaphysics. If I remember correctly it saw the Brahman as equivalent to the One, Ishvara was seen as equivalent to the Nous, and Hiranya Garbha as equivalent to the World Soul, and the Viraj as the World. Would I expect people to know what these words mean? The answer would be no, these words are part of a very specialized metaphysics, both the Vedantic and Neoplatonic. That doesn’t excuse people from being lazy and not referencing the meaning. Though I could see how it would be hard to read a text if almost every other word was part of some hermetic jargon. I would like to end it with saying that words like epistemology and metaphysics are not part of some hermetic jargon; these are words that you should know if you happen to take part in academic discussions.

I strongly defend the use of philosophical terminology, since these words were originally coined so that we might have the precision necessary to adequately express our thoughts. If I wanted to tell somebody to go to the store to get me some food, I wouldn’t say to that person, go to the place to get me some things. That is entirely too vague. By the same token, I do not need to use philosophical terminology when telling people to go to the store to get me some food. Those simple words adequately express my thoughts for the purpose at hand. The reality is that the philosophical words are necessary to explain philosophical concepts. This is something that I felt needed to be said.

On a side note, here is a good example of what I had to make sense of when I wanted to understand Vedantic and Buddhist metaphysics seriously.

Buddha taught that - everything is kshaNika, sva-lakshaNa, dukha, and shoonya.
This upadEsha of Buddha that everything is shoonya, was understood by yOgAchAra as external bAhya-artha is shoonya but the internal knowledge is not.

The point is that if I wanted to take a serious approach to their metaphysics, I would have to understand the language.