One of the complaints sometimes heard about philosophy and logic is that they can act overly concerned with “triffles” — little things which, it is thought, no sane person would find much to bother about. Thus do philosophers and logicians toil away and waste their time over matters like the nature of definitions, the meaning of the words like “can” or “is,” and so forth. At least, that’s what a person might think until they actually take a closer look at what’s going on.
- Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
- Bertrand Russell, “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”
Philosophers may on occasion have far too much time on their hands, but that’s not why they get wrapped up in such topics. No, because philosohers are so often concerned with careful reasoning about issues which affect everyone and with “first principles” that would allow us to develop secure beliefs, they frequently stumble across problems which, upon first glance, didn’t appeared to be real problems before.
In this manner long books and heavy papers have been written on topics like whether ethicals statements express beliefs or commands, how it is that any statement we make can have meaning, and of course the nature of definitions. Everyone is familiar with definitions, the subject of Bertrand Russell’s quotation above, and everyone is familiar with how to use them. So what’s the point of discussing them further?
Language is a complex and subtle thing. This is good because it allows us to express a wide range of ideas — not the least of which are new ideas never expressed before. To accomplish this, we need a very flexible tool. Unfortunately, language is so flexible that it can get bent out of shape without us even realizing it. In this way our terms and concepts can be so vague that it shouldn’t be clear what exactly they are referring to in the first place, but we don’t notice and keep on using them anyway.
Most of the time, we manage to muddle through — but sometimes, and far too often, this leads to misunderstandings. Philosophers seek to eliminate misunderstandings from their discussions, so of course they try to make the definitions of their terms more precise than they typically are in casual conversations. In doing this, however, they come to realize just how vague everything was to begin with — far more vague than was initially thought. This, in turn, gives rise to the question of just how anyone manages to communicate anything in the first place.
There are answers, of course — context, community, and culture go a long way in providing a strong background for our language. This, in turn, helps prevent our words from being seen in isolation — and it is isolation where much of the ambiguity or vagueness can develop. Still, it does make one wonder... presumably, our thoughts and ideas are reasonably clear in our minds, but just how clear are we being to everyone else?
