17/11/2014 A Non-Philosopher's Guide to Philosophical Terms

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A Non-Philosopher's Guide to PhilosophicalTerms

Believe it or not, this started out as a genuine attempt to sort out confusions that arise betweenphilosophers and everyone else in the world, before I got carried away ... Basically, the problem isthis. Philosophers are, in a manner of speaking, in a certain rarefied sense of the term I am about touse, boring. - No, really, we are. Philosophers, clumped together in any group where the ratio ofphilosophers to non-philosophers is 1:1 or greater, excluding the limit case where there are only twopeople in toto and only one of them is a philosopher, will actually talk about philosophy. They willautomatically correct each other's use of quantifiers and disambiguate statements where the intendedmeaning was perfectly plain. At any rate this is what I do.

Exactly how the glossary I am offering helps either party is no longer clear to me, but I had vaguelyhonourable intentions at the time I started writing it.

Also, since writing this glossary only a short while ago, I have received evidence that it has been readby at least six other people, none of whom were in any way prodded by me! Isn't the net amazing? Ofthese six, James Chase and Daniel Nolan have once again performed their invaluable service asproofreaders and advisors; and Daniel and Hamish Cowan have suggested some new entries which Ihave incorporated into the revised version.

TERM WHAT IT MEANS TO ALAYMAN WHAT IT MEANS TO A PHILOSOPHER

hooker one who can be hired to engagein sexual intercourse

one who thinks that "if A, then B" is logicallyequivalent (in some sense) to "either not-A, orB"; can be hired to tutor undergraduates, andcosts much less

utilitarianalmost precisely cubical andmade of concrete, probably amulti-storey car park

one who believes that the morally right actionis the one with the best consequences, so far asthe distribution of happiness is concerned; acreature generally believed to be endowed withthe propensity to ignore their own drowningchildren in order to push buttons which willcause mild sexual gratification in a warehousefull of rabbits

Benthamite

substance from the planetBentham capable of draining thesuper powers of WonderWoman, or Spiderman, or somesuch person

someone who really would ignore their owndrowning child in order to push the rabbit-gratification button

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supervenience that's it! ... he's the guy that getskilled by Benthamite

a one-way dependence relation betweenproperties or facts of one type and properties orfacts of another

personalidentity

the subject of self-help booksand those modern Broadwaysongs which involve the use of aspotlight

that by virtue of which I am the same person Iwas yesterday

logic...dictates that the needs of themany outweigh the needs of thefew, Captain

involves upside-down As and reversed Es

existentialquantifier an angst-ridden statistician a reversed E: see above

a posteriori things you think of when you'resitting down

knowledge which is the result of and is basedupon experience of some kind

a priori something you've thought of tohead your "things to do" list

things you think of when you're sitting down,in an armchair, usually with a snifter of brandyin one hand

Platonic the sort of love which is all verywell in its way

a philosophical position which posits abstractobjects almost palpable enough to trip over

Platonicheaven

this is a contradiction in terms:see above

a place where one might find triangles, thesquare root of two, and the abstract property ofbeing a mountain goat

Lewis author of books about Narnia a contemporary philosopher with a formidablereputation and a truly colossal beard

Quine

an alternative spelling of the OldScottish word "quean", asynonym for "strumpet" whichone might just get away withusing in a game of Scrabble;indeed, which one often has toresort to using if all of the U'sare already on the board

a contemporary philosopher of formidablereputation who I've never actually met, andwhose beard I am told does not exist, but who Iimagine has quite an impressive snort

Kripke

the name of a policeman who isthe subject of a song in WestSide Story, spelled so that NewZealanders will pronounce itcorrectly*

a contemporary philosopher of formidablereputation who, I am reliably informed, doeshave something of an impressive snort

Lockethatte whyche prevents roguesand arrant knaves from burglingYe Olde English Tea Shoppe

a dead philosopher of politics, language andmind

Moore Dan Quayle's description ofOthelloe

a dead philosopher fond of mentioning that hehad two hands

Hobbes the butler a dead political philosopher (who I also thinkof as having a snort to be reckoned with)

t a letter of the alphabet a moment in timeanother one of those OldScottish words so invaluable in

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grue a game of Scrabble, this onemeaning "a creeping of theflesh"

either green and first observed before time t orblue and first observed after or at time t

modal

something to do with differenttonal centres and flattenedleading notes, as in"Scarborough Fair"

the phrase "possible worlds" is going to bementioned any second now

possibleworld

a phrase which I seem to recallwas used as a lyric in a recentanimated movie from the WaltDisney studios

either the biggest spatio-temporally connectedthing of which we are all part, in which casethere is only one; or some sort of weirdabstraction, in which case there areuncountably many; but for a different view seeLewis

realist hard-headedsomeone who believes in the existence of trees;usually hard-headed, but if you mean "realistabout everything", decidedly soft-headed

idealist see tree-hugging, below

one who doesn't actually disbelieve in trees, butwho thinks that they can't be bumped into, takeup no space, and are in constant danger ofwinking out of existence if they are notproperly attended to

pragmatist as hard-headed as they comesomeone whose belief in the existence of treesdepends on their belief in the disposition ofscientifically-minded angels to believe in trees

slab

the noise made by a semi-literate, almost sub-sentient,drunken creature, in order toindicate that it wishes to begiven twenty-four cans of beer

the noise made by a semi-literate, almost sub-sentient, drunken creature, in order to indicatethat there is a piece of masonry in theimmediate vicinity

Descartes a mathematician a philosopherLeibniz a mathematician a philosopherDavies a philosopher a physicist

classicalHelen of Troy, Beethoven,Corinthian architecture andsimilar things

a stodgy, old-fashioned logic which produceswildly implausible results: for example,according to classical logic, no proposition isboth true and false

deviant someone who does unspeakablethings to furry animals

a logic which probably would do unspeakablethings to furry animals, if it could

absurd silly very silly

Republic a nation defined chiefly by itslack of a monarch

a nation which may well have a monarch, solong as the monarch believes everything Platobelieves, and has Plato's taste in music

France a country in Europe a nation defined chiefly by its lack of amonarch

the folkthe people responsible formaintaining the national supplyof macrame wall hangings

a collection of more or less sensible chaps whomore or less know what they mean, and it'smore or less what I mean

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gunk

matter which was once made ofatoms like ordinary matter butwhich is now a formlesssubstance blocking your drains

matter which is not made of atoms likeordinary matter, as it is infinitely divisible

deconstructingthe other ??? ???

Continental croissants, fruit juice, coffee deconstructing the other

rabbit rabbit

contiguous and bi-laterally symmetric (whenconsidered three-dimensionally) fusion oftemporal slices, chronologically ordered, ofwhat you are so pleased to call a "rabbit"(rabbit, indeed)

metaphysicssomewhere between "crystalhealing" and "tree hugging" inthe Dewey decimal system

No! How many times do I have to tell you?Nothing whatever to do with this New Agestuff! Now move my book away from the standcontaining Shirley MacLaine, or I shall be veryupset