On Definitions and Language

I am well aware that discussing language and its limits using language is a bit of a circus act, although one that we should not shy away from, given the essential role it plays in the totality of human life, especially for philosophy which demands a precision that language does not always offer, given that it drives language to its utmost limit or even exceeds it, and the fact that this can be done shows that the intellect is aware of things that language cannot put together in words.

Problem of Compression

I maintain that language acts as a sort of compression, of concepts or thought in the mental landscape or realities in the concrete–and not that these two are mutually distinct since the concrete itself is compressed into the mental, making it a double-compression–into discrete representations to be communicated, and this is why definitions always have special cases and are not exhaustive. And the fact that the physical is doubly mediated parallels the insight of Plato about the world of change where true knowledge is not possible though I do not take the extreme separation between the two worlds.

In a way we use our intellects in the formation of linguistic expression more so to limit the experiences and thoughts and compress them in a way as to be able to deliver them in writing, speech or conversation, and since the intellect is linked to speech as we can contemplate on things we express in language, it can lead the compression being to the thought itself in a way that the words are equated with the experience or thought and it becomes the experience and thought that are re-compressed once more, and this can incur information loss or the narrowing of our experience or thoughts.

This is widely apparent in self-identifications and definitions. When one identifies by a designator, he compresses himself into that, and when one defines a term he compresses the experience, thought or act denoted in a unit of a word. This means that in philosophical investigations as well as in personal perception we should be more aware of this compressive function of language and have the proper hierarchy of priority with regards to language, experience and thought where the language should not be the head, neither should experience be subordinate to both, although to clarify what I mean by experience is not empiricism but both external and internal experience.

Thus in a way the proper ordering of this and the awareness of the limitation of each is crucial, since even experience can deceive at times and thoughts can be triggered in us without our own willing, and as we saw language has power to shape us if we are not aware enough instead of shaping it which is the proper order of us with regards to our tools. This discernment is essential for any wise contemplation of philosophy and of life in general, since without it we can be possessed by concepts, ideas not of our own, and be consumed by our deception; in a way concepts create idols, only wonder comprehends anything as taught by the Wise Teacher of Nyssa.

The point being made is that each word, concept, experience should not be mistaken for the reality that undergirds it and should be conceived of in reference of the reality of things, since almost all issues stem from this confusion, this is evident with mistaking parts for the whole, images for the archetype, effects for causes and many other collapses of the distinctions.

Implicit Assumptions and Omissions

That being said let us go on to another point, also regarding compression but not of specific unit of language—by which I mean words—but rather also of sentences and statements, in that we performing the function of compression in our language, do omit details, quite regularly, details which are crucial for understanding but are comprehended implicitly; for example I might make both these statements and while they seem contradictory, they are perfectly true, I might say “I am exactly the same as I was ten years ago” or “I am completely different than what I was ten years ago”, these are both true regardless of their apparent contradiction, especially since we implicitly understand that we mean different aspects and that there was an omission of the part which clarifies in what respect are we the same or different. If fully expanded what we get is this “I am exactly the same [according to identity] as I was ten years ago” and “I am completely different [according to growth or knowledge] than what I was ten years ago”.

Another example but not with regards to self but others as well, is when one says “We all are the same”, with “we” being either the human nature, or a specific group within it, and also can say “We are all different”, both being true, what is omitted in both cases is this “We are all the same [according to our shared nature]” and “We are all different [according to our personal identity]”. And on another note, omission is also clear with verbs of identification in the sense that when we say “He is a politician”, “He is a human” or “He is Julius”, “is” is meant in different terms, in terms of essence, quality and identity respectively in that clarified they would be “He is [essentially] a human”, “He is [qualitatively] a politician” and “He is [identically] Julius” with each of these sometimes having different mappings to specific ideas themselves that might not be agreed upon.

This poses a great challenge on philosophical discourse since in doing this we are usually omitting the most important clarifications, by which an argument is understood properly, and it also explains the fact that there is a whole field of hermeneutics, and that philosophers from the beginning were struggling to properly interpret either Plato, Aristotle or any other philosopher, and it is also why Socrates was so keen on uncovering implicit assumptions and to bother his interlocutors with questions of definitions. Since in a way it is contrary to our normal way to conversing to make everything explicit, or else we would be speaking like automata, which is also why it is quite the challenge to start learning about philosophy for the first time.

Tradition and Fragmentation

In antiquity, this problem was often handled by tradition, given that inside one tradition the philosophers of that specific school had shared linguistic shortcuts and presuppositions which they shared and that meant that they could handle problems from their own paradigm rather than having to reconstruct their philosophical foundations each time, this was also the same for religions and cults where were common, and they were highly secretive, since they could risk being misunderstood with regards to their mysteries and doctrines, but in this age, we do not have such things as systematized as it was, and thus the never-ending debates about foundational matters, except that the academic system replaces this but instead of a tradition you have an anti-tradition, where you can hold to any idea except the ones that were already tried in the past.

Because of this, modern debates feel futile, and every worldview seem to have both good reasons for and against adopting it, especially since if one were to attempt to be neutral and evaluate, he would see that each one makes perfect sense within its own framework and other frameworks are incommensurable with it, given that each one uses language very differently, and given lack of tradition, incoherence only arises when one attempts the intellectual grocery shopping of ideas from many traditions and philosophers leading to personal confusion even before the philosophical one and subsequently societal fragmentation.

And this is because of language primarily and how it functions and what happens when the whole is in linguistic disarray even if speaking the same language which is interesting considering the dominance of English as an international language, and it is also quite incoherent from some to say about philosophical disagreements that it is ‘merely’ a language issue in the sense that it is not important, since these language issues have great ramifications.

In a way fruitful philosophical discussions, or any debate for that matter, involves the making explicit of assumptions and definitions, in a way to decompress the thoughts behind arguments and to make explicit the character of the framework still in terms of language but in a more logical structure that is not natural to language in a way we must say much in order to unsay our inadequacy, and it is that when one has confused the compression for the compressed, here one can run the risk to talk past the other and impose on him his own suppositions or one can attempt to transcend the problem by reverent silence and to make our actions our speech.