Great question(s). Your choice of examples is interesting, as the philosopher Wittgenstein used the term "game" to make his case that the meaning of some terms is not at all strict and relies more on what he called "family resemblance" than a strict appeal to necessary and sufficient conditions. His view is that we might meaningfully use terms without precision and he then went on to speak of different "language games," by which (I believe) he meant different contexts or domains in which different rules (or practices) apply. So, in the "language game" of the physical sciences, the term "cause" may have a different meaning than in the "language game" of religion. That aside, certain practices like philosophy may stipulate that terms have special meaning that may not match ordinary usage. Philosophers in the recent past have used terms like "manifest image" that is vaguely related to the way we ordinarily use the terms "manifest" and "image" but give it a special, specific meaning (the world as it...

Thank you for these interesting reflections! As for your first point, there are a number of philosophers who address radical skepticism (e.g. can any of us know with certainty that we are not, as we seem to be, wide awake and acting in the world rather than, say, dreaming?) in the way you suggest. Arguably, life may continue just as it appears until one's death and yet there would be no decisive reason to rule out the possibility one was merely a brain in a vat. And because of this, some philosophers think that such radical skeptical hypotheses are idle or nonsensical or of no interest. I am somewhat of the other mind: I think we can imagine radical hypothetical states of affairs in which we are indeed systematically mistaken in almost all our beliefs about ourselves in the world (in brief, I think it conceivable that we might be in the matrix). While this does not have awesome practical consequences, I think it should humble us in our knowledge claims. As for the second point, Quine set out to...

Oh dear, oh dear, I hope not! You are right that many statements can be interpreted in ways that would make them plausable, but communication rests on agreed upon meanings and nuances. So, it became apparent during the Clinton years that his claim not to have had sex with Monica was outright deception, even though he might have had a definition of "sex" that did not include (what most people would describe as) the types of sexual acts they performed. The key lies in wrongful deception, whether or not you say something that is literally true. Imagine you are late for an appointment because you lingered too long over lunch. The person you were to meet says: "You're late." You respond: "The traffic today is horrible." Let's say it is true the traffic is horrible, so this is not (in some narrow sense a lie, but it is lying insofar as you are engaged in deception by implying that the reason you are late is due to traffic. You might like to read Thomas Carson's Lying and Deception; theory and practice ...

Great question! In the dialogue Phaedrus, Socrates offers reasons why the girls (if you are right that all girls prefer verbal communication) may be right. Among other things, Socrates proposed that verbal, in-person communication is superior to writing for it is less subject to misunderstanding. One can, on the spot, correct misleading communication, and one can also retain the ability to revise one's position in the here and now. Socrates thought that writing things down, in contast, is akin to abandoning your speech. Still, even if Socrates is right about this, we would not know his position unless his observations were written down (asssuming that a reliable oral tradition going back to 399 BCE would be a bit unlikely) and there is often (though not always) a clarity and endurance in written communication. In reply to your question, I suggest, instead, not that there is no difference between written and verabal communication; each has its virtues and vices. If you want a record, I would go...

Great question. Some philospohers have been quite firm that thought cannot exist without language, but this has always struck me as quite implausable. One problem is that it is hard to know how one might even begin to learn a language unless you had thoughts. But the case you raise is another reason to be suspicious of such a linguistic account of thought. There might be a middle position, however, in which one recognizes that in expressing thoughts in language we can achieve greater clarity; a poem may help crystalize in sharper terms what had, until you read the poem, only been vague hunches. Your language even suggests this, for the poem seems to be something more concrete than "thoughts ...that had been floating in" your mind. Good wishes! CT

Great question. In replying to a question on vulgarity earlier this week, I offered a minor defense of swearing, suggestiing that it might be essential in expressing the passionate nature of one's convictions (e.g. the classic case is the law case over whether wearing a shirt with the words "Fuck the draft" was protected under free speech) and using vulgarity might be more effective to get people's attention in an emergency (e.g. if you yelled out "Get out of the ^%$#@ building; it is on fire!" you might get a faster response than if you left out the swearing). But in trying to come up with a general account about why the use of profanity might be wrong in general, I think one would need to argue that it in some way debases language and offends human dignity. I write "offends" rather than some stronger word (like "violates"!) as if a wrong is involved, surely it is not a deep and profound wrong unless other factors are involved (you are using profanity to intimidate children). Degredation and offense...

Very interesting! Your specific interest seems to be vulgarity as opposed to blasphemy (e.g. using 'God' or 'Jesus' in cursing) or insults in general. I am not acquainted with much philosophical work on vulgarity per se, but there is some literature on politeness and respect that may be relevant. Some have argued that politeness is a virtue itself (what Hobbes called small morals) while others have contended that politeness is a reflection of greater virtues (the shadow of great virtues, to use G.K. Chesterton's expression). I suggest that vulgarity may be used for a host of reasons: to insure familiarity with someone, to use as an insult, to simply get attention, and so on. There was an important Supreme Court case in the USA --I believe it was Cohen versus California-- in which it was argued that a person had a right to wear a shirt that had the words "Fuck the Draft" on it because only using the explicative was the person able to fully express his convictions and thus it was protected under our...