0
   

Omit Needless Words

 
 
Zetherin
 
  1  
Reply Tue 16 Feb, 2010 10:26 am
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;128999 wrote:
I don't think it was.


It was:

jgweed wrote:

From an orthographical, phonetical, and etymological viewpoint, the transliteration of the Greek kappa to the English K seems preferable to retaining the Roman one of using their hard C. Hence, some English linguists opt to reverse the Latin transliteration process for Greek proper names.


kennethamy wrote:

Maybe. But that still isn't how "Socrates" is spelled in English (as you can see) and spelling is ruled by conventions. There are a great many words which should not be spelled as they are. But that is the way they are spelled. In any case, the conventions of the hard and soft 'C' in Latin are not those of English.


Source: http://www.philosophyforum.com/philosophy-forums/branches-philosophy/logic/7378-irrational-argument-rational-2.html#post121749
kennethamy
 
  1  
Reply Tue 16 Feb, 2010 10:32 am
@Zetherin,



Right you are. I thought it was another whose name begins with a 'J'. Well, anyway, if correction does not work the first time, it may the second time.
0 Replies
 
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 16 Feb, 2010 11:43 pm
@kennethamy,
kennethamy;128996 wrote:
Hmmm. I see you also misspell "Socrates".


Wow, and all this time I thought he was Greek. Who cares which letters he uses? JG's spelling is more phonetically honest anyhow.
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Mon 22 Feb, 2010 11:16 pm
@Reconstructo,
Onanismo sold a paintingless painting for 2 million USD last year. Since then he has been collecting his farts in jars. A paintingless painting is a frame and a pricetag, signature in invisible ink. (His only influence, he assured us all, was God, the master of vanishing.)
0 Replies
 
jeeprs
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:11 am
@Reconstructo,
actually, and totally off the point, I once read about a company whose invention was computer-generated hard-copy text, which would fade over time. Some kind of security device. But the thing I loved about the idea was the company name.

Dissappearing, Inc.
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Feb, 2010 12:14 am
@jeeprs,
jeeprs;131312 wrote:
actually, and totally off the point, I once read about a company whose invention was computer-generated hard-copy text, which would fade over time. Some kind of security device. But the thing I loved about the idea was the company name.

Dissappearing, Inc.



Good stuff. Disappearing ink is a great idea. Even if only as art.
0 Replies
 
kennethamy
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Feb, 2010 01:02 am
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;129243 wrote:
Wow, and all this time I thought he was Greek. Who cares which letters he uses? JG's spelling is more phonetically honest anyhow.


Why is it more phonetically honest (whatever that might mean)?
0 Replies
 
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Feb, 2010 01:09 am
@Reconstructo,
Onanismo then created a minimal version of the website Twitter. He called it Skitters. All the users could do on this site was iterate their handle. Corporations joined this site. It (onanismatic.com) offered the world a flickering last-name-posted box.

Did Luther really say that Men were God's Turds?
Deckard
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Feb, 2010 01:27 am
@Reconstructo,
Good poets also omit needless words.
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Tue 23 Feb, 2010 02:28 am
@Deckard,
Deckard;131330 wrote:
Good poets also omit needless words.


Man as a passion for uselessness. (F)art as perfectly useless. As perhaps you will find these phrases. Phrase quoted above as poetry concerning poetry. Poetry's Self-Portrait.

---------- Post added 02-23-2010 at 03:39 AM ----------

An oversimplification of linguistic philosophy: the Trope school versus the Nope school. I see the uses of both. The Nopes conceive of themselves as metaphysics-filters. Otherwise known as B.S. Detectors. To pick and choose is aristocratic. The Tropes sell linguistic self-consciousness as a vaccine against inertia. Tropes are spiders on the web among flies, or web-bound flies that dream that they are spiders.
0 Replies
 
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 02:04 am
@Reconstructo,
The TLP is probably the greatest foolosophy of the 20th century? Written in the trenches of its first world war? And negative theology utterly immune to science?
Quote:

6.432 How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference
for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world.
Quote:

6.4312 Not only is there no guarantee of the temporal immortality of the
human soul, that is to say of its eternal survival after death; but, in
any case, this assumption completely fails to accomplish the purpose
for which it has always been intended. Or is some riddle solved by my
surviving for ever? Is not this eternal life itself as much of a riddle
as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and
time lies outside space and time. (It is certainly not the solution of
any problems of natural science that is required.)
His concern is clear. Metaphysics. Ontology. His answer is the absence of this answer. He scratches the itch with the itch.
Quote:

6.45 To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole--a
limited whole. Feeling the world as a limited whole--it is this that is
mystical.
Oneness is whole, but not itself limited. Only negative oneness is a limited whole, containing both of our primary thoughts: identity and negation. Negation is the same as addition. Number is a two dimensional spectrum. Either side is up as long as one is consistent. If all positive numbers are switched with all negative numbers, nothing changes.

Zero remains an absurdity, which mathematicians are still unable to divide by. Because one is the only number, and we only have one operator we can apply to it. The other operators are derivative. This includes the decimal point and positional notation.
Quote:

6.4 All propositions are of equal value.
Quote:

6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is
transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.)
Quote:

6.423 It is impossible to speak about the will in so far as it is
the subject of ethical attributes. And the will as a phenomenon is of
interest only to psychology.

Quote:

The world of the happy man is a different one from that
of the unhappy man.
0 Replies
 
Pyrrho
 
  1  
Reply Thu 4 Mar, 2010 08:34 am
@Reconstructo,
Reconstructo;128369 wrote:
Omit Needless Words. I have never forgotten this phrase from Stunk and White's "The Elements of Style."

Let's talk about the writing style of philosophers. Let's talk about the medium as part of the message, the form as content. Personally, I'm suspicious of tomes, fat fat philosophy books. I'm also suspicious of new jargon if the old words are just as good. For instance, Blake is better when he is writing his views in plain English, in his annotations. (His annotations are clear enough for me to treat them as philosophy, yes.)

Anyone have any comments about philosophy and writing style, book length, chapter organization, footnotes, etc.? Or about how this contributes the overall effect?


The rule, "omit needless words", is a good one. The better philosophers do not violate that rule as much as many lessor ones. But it does not follow that the books they write will necessarily be short, as they may have quite a bit to say. David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is long, but not overly so for the amount and nature of the material he covers. With Sartre, even a short book is typically too long for what he has to say.

As for the medium being part of the message, I immediately think of Plato with his dialogues. Not only is the content of the dialogues philosophy, but he is showing how he thinks people should go about this with the dialogue form.
Reconstructo
 
  1  
Reply Fri 5 Mar, 2010 02:11 am
@Pyrrho,
Pyrrho;135896 wrote:
The rule, "omit needless words", is a good one. The better philosophers do not violate that rule as much as many lessor ones. But it does not follow that the books they write will necessarily be short, as they may have quite a bit to say. David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature is long, but not overly so for the amount and nature of the material he covers. With Sartre, even a short book is typically too long for what he has to say.

As for the medium being part of the message, I immediately think of Plato with his dialogues. Not only is the content of the dialogues philosophy, but he is showing how he thinks people should go about this with the dialogue form.


yes, your reservations are something I can relate to. I can't help but notice that what is left after processing a philosopher is a few key concepts, that make them significant.

i've read hundreds of thousands of pages, no doubt....so i'm not lazy. it may be idosyncratic of me. i've always wanted a zoomed-out view, to see the whole unified, all of human discourse. i agree w/ bacon. taste some books. eat others whole.
0 Replies
 
 

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