Friday, September 10, 2004

Lexicon

Courtesy of Pas au-dela, an amusing philosophical lexicon. A few examples below:

castaneda, n. An elaborate musical instrument, emitting a confused sound when agitated. "The original theme was lost in the sound of the castaneda."

dreyfus, n. (from "dry" & "fuss") An arid ad hominem controversy. "What began as an interesting debate soon degenerated into a dreyfus."

feyerabend, n. (fr. German "feuer" & "abend") The last brilliant moment of a conceptual framework before death and transfiguration. Every conceptual framework has its feyerabend

habermass, (from the Middle High German halber Marx; cf. ganzer Marx) n. A religious ceremony designed to engender an illusion of understanding through chants describing socio-economic conditions. Hence also, habermass, v. "He habermassed Einstein; he attempted to deduce the special theory of relativity from the social structure of the Zurich patent office." "Nothing but a gadam habermass" - H. S. Truman

heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger."

macintyre, n. An inflated wheel with a slick, impervious coating; hence, derivatively, an all-terrain vehicle equipped with macintyres. "If you want to cover that much territory that fast, you'd best use the macintyre."

popper, adj. Exhibiting great moral seriousness; impopper, frivolous.

ricoeur, v. To interpret all philosophical questions by means of a limited range of insights and themes. Hence ricoeursive procedure, a recipe for generating infinite philosophical insights from a very limited subset thereof. "The Tractatus proceeds ricoeursively."

scrutonize, v. "To conflate two disciplines at a superficial level so that dinner party conversations could continue in the spurious belief that matters of moment were being discussed while the port was passed." - David Dunster, Architectural Design, December 1979, p. 327.

Perhaps a similar blog lexicon could be constructed, 'To harry, v. 'Maintaining an empty symbolic/ gestural claim to be on the Left whilst promoting a Liberal or Right Wing agenda. . “he’s merely harrying.."; 'To drop a Pollard..' Actually, best not get started.