Of course! To see why, consider a thought experiment: I have heard (and don't know whether it is true or not) that Inuit people have many more words for (the different kinds of) snow than what are available in other languages. But even if this isn't true, one can certainly imagine this sort of thing. So imagine that there is some language spoken by island dwellers whose economy and survival is almost entirely based on hunting/gathering and cultivation of sea life. This culture might have much more sophisticated and complicated descriptions of local sea creatures than ours (organized, in other words, not just in terms of differences in species, but also this combined with sizes, colors, and other traits that may mark off individuals within the species as better for different purposes to which they might be put by the islanders). Briefly, they would have single words for different descriptors that we would have to attempt using many more words to complete the description. In that sense, they might...

Sure it is. Obviously, one would have to defend any such claim with specific examples in mind, but here's one that is now famous among philosophers. For a long time, people used and made decorative items made from "jade." But then, chemical analysis showed that what people were calling "jade" was actually two distinct materials, which are now called "jadeite" and "nephrite." Both are still generically called "jade," but sophisticated buyers now know well that there are differences between these two materials, and these differences may have an impact on the value of artifacts made from each material. Here's the point: a language that simply has the term "jade" in it will not be as effective for describing the world as a language that has both "jadeite" and "nephrite" in it. So there's your answer.

As someone who teaches ancient Greek philosophy in translation (almost all the time, at any rate), I have worried a lot about questions like yours. I have also been a translator of some of the texts I and others teach, and so I have also encountered the problem from that side, too. It's a thorny one, for sure. The easiest answer is the purist one: translations are simply never adequate. But in the end, I also think this is far too easy an answer, to the point of actually being worthless. Here's why: What happens when some student decided he or she really wants to avoid the pitfalls of working from someone else's translation? Well, he or she must learn the original language. OK, good choice. But wait: do the teachers of that language themselves somehow manage to avoid the cultural and social aspects of the culture(s) of teacher and student so completely or effectively that the process of learning the new language is not itself just as likely to continue whatever misunderstandings the student...

OK, there are a few things going on here. Let's begin with a little bit about obscenity. Some words are regarded as obscenities, but then other descriptions of the very same things are not. If I use the term "sexual intercourse," no one is going to accuse me of using an obscenity. So why, then, do people object to the f-word, since it seems to refer to the same thing? Well, the very notion of an obscenity is a bit unclear, and may simply be contextual. I can certainly imagine circumstances in which a use of the f-word would not seem to me to qualify as an obscenity. It might, for example, be a part of a rather intriguing invitation (or promise), under the right circumstances. The problem you seem to be attending to might perhaps be in the fact that the f-word is usually associated with doing something to someone , as in "f*** you!" So part of what make it an obscenity is that it conceives of sexual intercourse in an offensive (and possibly threatening) way. So the element that makes...

Most philosophers are still very much interested in, and try to engage regularly in, live discussions with others. You won't find many of us claiming, for example, that teaching philosophy can effectively be done remotely, for example. The direct exchange of ideas and the interplay of active minds in an immediate person-to-person context still seems to most of us to be critical. On the other hand, writing and reading make ideas more available than does simply speaking. You don't have to have known Kant to read his works and be engaged with and influenced by his thought. Reading and writing are the skills of our globalized age, and it allows us to transcend time by "speaking" to those who we can never meet, because of distance in space or time. By reading my colleagues' work (before I meet them in person), I can get to know which of them I want to speak with in person. So as important as speaking, listening and such are, writing and reading offer distinct advantages that we would be very...

This is an interesting one. One rather tangential aspect of your question is the fact that the backetball player formerly known as Ron Artest (whom I have watched play numerous times) seems a very poor role model on the topic of peace (or peaceful demeanor)! Anyway, such sniping aside, the news is that he changed his name to Metta World Peace (not Meta)--go figure! OK, so what is the philosophical issue here? Well, it seems there is a question as to whether or not we have a right to be called by our legal names. This does not seem to me to be a matter of "respect" for his choice of name, but a matter of recognizing that the name is now legally Metta World Peace. But I don't see why announcers couldn't refer to him as "MWP" or "Peace" without implied disrespect. In the end, public figures such as Metta World Peace (by any name) should get used to the idea that they do not have complete control over what others say about them or what others call them. I think one should expect as...

As you say, even those of us not trained in reading lips can often make out what is being said. So all that is censored is the actual sound of the word(s) being spoken. Don't ask me why people find this comforting or morally improving. In my view, most allegedly bad language is simply in bad taste. Etiquette is not the same as morality, no matter how vigilantly it is someetimes enforced. Of course, not all bad language is simply bad taste--hate speech actually is immoral, I think. And I also would allow that the border between hate speech and other "bad" language (e.g. certain obscenities) can be somewhat blurry. So *+#!~+%$* that!

There is a very good entry on definitions in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (on-line), and a pretty good review of the various fallacies of definition in Wikipedia. Happy hunting!

Professor Bloggs is an easy grader, and students flock to his courses in droves, because he will give an A to a student just in case the student turns in all the assignments. The easiest answer to your question (other than showing in my example that the logical understanding of "just in case" is one legitimate sense of this term) is that the other senses cannot be reduced to the sorts of truth-functional connectives that are required in logic. But plainly, this is one of those expressions that can be used in several different ways--and thanks to Peter Smith for giving another clear case of this (where "just in case really means "because")!

I don't quite catch the description given in "indescribable." What positive information is provided? Of course, one might also now wonder precisely what it is we are talking about--because if it is truly indescribable, it sounds like there's not much to say. If so, 'nuff said!