The Philosopher’s Mouth

“It’s just a lot of terms you throw out. Catchwords and phrases that have almost lost their meaning,” Danai Wright pointed out.

“Like what,” Ascenda Lyme asked.

“‘Cherry picking…low hanging fruit…strawman…smear,” Danai listed.

“Cherry picking means you’re choosing different pieces of an argument rather than including the whole picture. Low hanging fruit is the easy topic you choose when engaged in a philosophical discussion. Strawman are arguments that only correspond to setting up something that actually isn’t a legitimate argument and attempt to pass it off as such. And a smear is a deliberate try to besmirch the name of a figure through lies, obfuscations, and disgust.”

“Oh.”

“Any more items on the docket?”

“A bit. How do you properly describe a floating abstraction?”

Ascenda smiled. “Yes, of course. That is another way of stating something not grounded in reality or fact and letting it be vaporous or fluid without properly saying what it really means.”

The two friends sat on the benches of the track field watching the athletes train. They saw muscular bodies and the focused looks on their faces.

“I just find it all bewildering the different philosophical terms that seem to be issued by Professor Mingus. I try to keep up but you seem to truly get it. I admire that,” Danai admitted.

“Of course. It’s just the way that the words make pictures in your head,” Ascenda replied.

“Exactly! Like I literally see cherries and a scarecrow!”

“It’s easy to get caught up in the catchwords and phrases.”

“I don’t want to drop philosophy but I’m looking at an incomplete at best.”

“Don’t drop it. I’ll help you with the millennia of thought that has been passed down to us today. You just have to look past the symbolism. The figurative language, ironically, is to make ideas compact and clear in a tight package,” Ascenda explained.

“That’s another one!” exclaimed Danai. “Package deal…what is that?”

“That’s okay. It’s an instance where you attempt to smuggle a fallacy into a true statement.”

“Can you give me an example?”

“Sure,” responded Ascenda. “Take for instance the idea of Mohammad. It’s true that he should be disparaged, disgraced, and denigrate. What people try to inject into the argument is that he actually has powers beyond the grave and has sovereignty over the masses. The truth outweighs any of the falsehoods that may accompany it.”

“Alright, alright. That’s pretty clear. I can get that. So what is the difference among all of them? What is the distinction that makes them separate and clear?” Denai asked.

“That’s simple. You have to take each concept and differentiate them from one another. The crucial part of philosophy is the wisdom you receive upon understanding, and in good philosophies, applying and integrating them into your life. Philosophy is not a time to throw darts and play pool and drink beer. I mean you can talk about such an establishment, but it doesn’t stay there. It expands and pushes through the walls and up and out to the world. Everybody’s gotta have philosophy. Whether you know it or not or want to acknowledge it, philosophy will either envelope you in warmth or swallow you cold.”

“Some more figurative language….”

“Absolutely.”

“I mean the figurative language has allowed me to see just how much philosophy has shaped my life…and the world.”

“That’s right. Everything that you can think of in human history from the mudhut to the mansion has been a result of ideas. The more advances we make technologically, we need to match those with better ideas.”

“That’s true. My world just changed because of you.”

“I can appreciate that.”