Is Wittgenstein relevant here? — TheMadFool

I'm embarrassed to say it, but I've never read Wittgenstein carefully enough to say anything useful about him.

As part of a balanced regimen of expository etiquette, including regular glossing, defining of terms has been shown to visibly reduce misunderstandings, and underlying spiritual growth. Haha. And now, the science bit:

Definitions can be beneficial when used to join up separate discourses of any kind, large or small: large, e.g. languages in use, conceptual schemes, paradigms, ideologies, disciplines; and small, e.g. beliefs, dialogues, theories etc.

(Ouch, I might have glossed a bit hard there).

Where they meet most resistance is probably where they are perceived as the possible Trojan horse of an untrustworthy power?

Just want to share an interesting (in my opinion) take on this definition thingy.

In another forum I just used the expression "...goddam rain"...and was instantly called to task for "cursing."

Guy ALMOST got it right, because using "god" and "damn" in the same sentence often IS cursing...but not in this case.

Cursing, swearing, profanity, blasphemy, vulgarities...all have specific meaning...although they are reasonably used interchangeably in casual conversation.

Cursing is asking for someone to be "damned"...usually, although not exclusively by a god. "God damn you!" is cursing. "Trump is a fucking moron" is NOT.

Swearing...is oath taking...and when used in its pejorative sense, usually means asking a god to witness an oath unnecessarily. "I swear to god that Trump is the most ignorant, fucking moron ever to be president of America" IS swearing. Unnecessary calling on a god to witness a statement is swearing (in the pejorative sense) whether it is true or not.

Profanity (or blasphemy) involves making worldly what some consider sacred. "Jesus H. Christ" used in exasperation...is profanity. "Trump is a fucking moron" is NOT.

Saying, "Trump is a fucking moron" IS a vulgarity...without regard to whether it is true or true.

Felt that this fit into this discussion nicely.

For example, when discussing physics, we're not interested in simply defining what "work" or "heat" mean out in space, so to speak. Likewise, we keep our "gut feelings" and "personal" semantics out of terms like being, mind, nature, universe, reference, event, meaning, etc.

Yeah, different fields use specialized, technical language. The difference is these terms are often heuristics (in other words, they're more just useful concepts for helping us understand other concepts as opposed to a statement about the nature of ultimate reality) or they're just little unique quirks within the field (in the military we use all sorts of weird language but again, no one takes it to be a reflection of ultimate reality.)

The difference in a nutshell is that philosophy often claims to be a reflection of ultimate reality - and when you use words like "mind" you're already seemingly presupposing non-physicalism (you could have just used "brain" which everyone understands) and you're invoking a concept that I don't even know how to approach that is your way of making a claim about ultimate reality - it's a little tyrannical, if you think about it. Definitions in themselves can be a little tyrannical it often comes down the nature of these definitions - i.e. whether one claims they are a facet of ultimate reality or not.