Philosphical terms you should seek to avoid
Posted: Mon Jun 14, 2021 4:21 pm
When being introduced to philosophical ideas, a young individual is often overwhelmed by the amount of terms he encounters. Mastering these is a necessity to access a philosophical thesis, but many terms which are used ambiguously or lazily do not aid his comprehension. After a concise list of my own, you may contribute to this thread with terms which you find unnecessary, ambiguous or obsolete.
Conflict - In a philosophical debate, there is no such thing as a conflict. Only contradiction or dissonance.
Confirmation - Frequently used to mean verification or being "consistent with", and misused to mean affirmation. (Saying "yes" is an affirmation.)
Normative - It's better to use "prescriptive", as a distinction from "descriptive".
Burden of proof - An excessive way of saying "onus".
Reason - Unless used to mean the cognitive faculty of reason, it's just an ambiguous term which is variously used to signify either "justification" or "telos" (Aristotle's fourth category). Its most blatant misuse is to signify etiology (cause for an effect).
Absolute - Not sure about why this is a useful term. When Hegel speaks of the "absolute", he could have just said "unconditional" to avoid ambiguity.
Singular, singularity - Effectively it just refers to continuity. Many people are confused about the idea of monism; when Spinoza says that two things are the same substance, he means that they are continuous.
Similarity - In philosophy, it's essentially just a matter of continuity.
Disprove - Ambiguous term which can mean anything from "exclude" to "contradict" or "falsify".
Debunk - A term of rather random etymology which can be ambiguous, meaning either "falsify" or "exclude".
Conflict - In a philosophical debate, there is no such thing as a conflict. Only contradiction or dissonance.
Confirmation - Frequently used to mean verification or being "consistent with", and misused to mean affirmation. (Saying "yes" is an affirmation.)
Normative - It's better to use "prescriptive", as a distinction from "descriptive".
Burden of proof - An excessive way of saying "onus".
Reason - Unless used to mean the cognitive faculty of reason, it's just an ambiguous term which is variously used to signify either "justification" or "telos" (Aristotle's fourth category). Its most blatant misuse is to signify etiology (cause for an effect).
Absolute - Not sure about why this is a useful term. When Hegel speaks of the "absolute", he could have just said "unconditional" to avoid ambiguity.
Singular, singularity - Effectively it just refers to continuity. Many people are confused about the idea of monism; when Spinoza says that two things are the same substance, he means that they are continuous.
Similarity - In philosophy, it's essentially just a matter of continuity.
Disprove - Ambiguous term which can mean anything from "exclude" to "contradict" or "falsify".
Debunk - A term of rather random etymology which can be ambiguous, meaning either "falsify" or "exclude".