Episode 4- Why is Philosophy so Annoying?

“Technology is not equivalent to the essence of technology. When we are seeking the essence of ‘tree’, we have to become aware that That which pervades every tree, as tree, is not itself a tree that can be encountered among all the other trees.” That’s Martin Heidegger in The Questions Concerning Technology. 

Philosophy can be extremely annoying and hard to read like Martin Heidegger. Sometimes its not so bad but a lot of modern day philosophy and the big important books in philosophy are all hard to read with really difficult vocabulary and structuring and it gives you a headache.

I’m not a professional nor do I understand almost anything, most of these episodes require loads of research and I don’t want to come off as being someone who has an excess of knowledge. Most of the time I have to spend hours reading topics and commentaries and critiques for each episode.

Should we critique philosophers and philosophy for being inaccessible? Is there any value to the big words and the long sentences? Yes. I say that even though its the opposite when it comes to why I started this podcast. But there are a few reasons why using all the jargon and lingo is important in academic philosophy. Philosophy should be delivered in a way thats as accessible as possible but in some cases you have to use the pretentious wording. Here’s why:

1. Sometimes the only word you can use is polysyllabic and dense because its the most accurate word to use. This is especially the case in English since our words often don’t have the exact meaning we are looking for. Languages like Greek, Latin and Germanic and Slavic languages don’t deal with this as much. There’s also the guess that using big words in an academic context will be more respectable and admirable because academics are stuffy and sit on a high horse, only to be appeased with large words. Consider these terms; nature, natural, love, and justice. What do you think when you hear these words. Let’s talk about the term nature. Are we talking about the environment untouched by humans, are we talking about the nature of something like human nature? Are humans included in nature, if so why do we talk about humans as if they are separate of nature. Now we can talk about the word natural, does it mean coming from nature? What do we consider natural? How is a birds nest natural but a building isn’t? Nobody has the same definition of love and there are constant arguments of what is just or how justice should be done. These are all subjective terms and its hard to talk about them especially in an academic sense, so you have to use big words.

2. Some words are used because a philosopher is engaging with another philosopher who uses big words or dense concepts. Take Heidegger for example. We talked about how awful he writes but he introduces a few concepts and terms and even makes up words so people don’t assume what he means by saying being. He has a famous concept called being-in-the-world. This term is very specific with a very specific meaning. If I were to engage with Heidegger I would have to use terms like phenomenology, Dasein, multiplicity, being, worlds, and a lot of terms that rely on the big terms used by Heidegger. This is the case across all fields of philosophy. If we were talking about ethics it would be necessary to use terms like deontological, teleological, utilitarian, consequentialist and a lot of other terms

3. This last one is a twofer, but its a claim towards the same subject. I think the third reason relates to how the philosopher views the importance of the words they are using. It seems like there are three ways this can be bad. If someone is using impressive words to somehow separate themselves from common words and thus common people that is elitist and toxic. If someone is using big words to somehow try to make themselves look smarter then this person is succumbing to low self esteem in how smart they are. Finally, it seems as if there might be more value in using big words then there is in using simple terms to share your ideas.

There could be a hundred other reasons, but this is what I thought of. Since sometimes its necessary to use big words, how should we go about understanding the dense terms and annoying jargon?

Firstly, a dictionary or Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy are both great resources for tough words. However, reading a thirty page article written in a way that gives you a headache requires practice. That’s the second thing. Reading introductory philosophy as a way to build up to reading more intense stuff. Philosophy is structured in a pretty specific way and even the style of writing is somewhat universal and it takes getting used to. You can’t start with Tractatus by Wittgenstein, it has to be gradual or you will be overwhelmed. 

As we go on with this show, I plan on jumping into more complex topics like Aquinas’ arguments for God or Nietzsche’s will to power but for now we will just talk about concepts and I will try to include excerpts and pieces from important philosophical texts to help with the introduction. The next episodes will be on accidentalism and determinism back to back. While these episodes are generally short, I know this one is very short. We’ll see if that ever changes. Until next time, stay safe.