Definitions as Disagreement
My sophomore year of college, I walked into an 8:30am Philosophy of Human Nature course taught by an overly enthusiastic grad student, and I walked out with a second major (and a crush on my professor… which is neither here nor there). The discipline immediately appealed to me because it was a way of looking at the world and our place in it that asked for constant criticism and reevaluation in a way that wasn’t allowed in fundamentalist evangelicalism (more on that at another time).
One of the first lessons I learned and have since taken into every part of my life is the importance of definitions. From an academic perspective, clear definitions are the necessary first step in an argument. Ancient philosophers would spend ages narrowing down the definitions of the terms they were using, and that was before the actual arguing even began! Historically, this was a tactic used to rationalize prejudice against marginalized groups. However - I’m not content to let dead white men dictate the ways in which language opens up my understanding of the universe. Decolonizing my studies as a student of philosophy means using specific language to broaden my understanding and experiences, not narrow them.
In the study of philosophy, you are asked to constantly reevaluate nuance. What, precisely, do you mean by this example or that? Why did you substitute one word for another? What changes when those substitutions are made? What are the linguistic assumptions that I’m making in my understanding of a certain thing, and how might they differ from the assumptions of others?
Outside of the context of academia, I have found that a similar questioning of my language is an excellent way to encourage honest and productive conversation. Language is ever-evolving, and in response we must be ever-evaluating. Does word X mean the same thing as it did in yesterday’s conversation? Am I using word Y and word Z interchangeably? Let’s say that at the beginning of this post, I condemned the color blue, but by the end I clarified that I really meant azure. What nuance have I lost along the way? Where have I let my meaning be splintered into a thousand different possibilities, beyond the one I actually intended? Have I come upon the meaning I intended at all?
I exercised this principle a few nights ago, in a community discussion about non-violence. We were working through discussions on what nonviolent direct action means, and what the parameters are for evaluating a potential action. Throughout those conversations, I figured out that I was delineating between the concepts of “violent” and “destructive” in a way that some members of the group weren’t. None of us were necessarily wrong or right (or maybe we were, I don’t know, the learning is the point!), but we were going to continue to accidentally talk circles around each other until that distinction was clarified.
Parsing through the similarities and differences allowed me to more clearly understand my own point of view, and also guided me towards seeing a more complete list of possibilities. It’s worth noting that I’m not saying that clarifying your definitions will soothe arguments, or get everyone to the same baseline. I am saying that examining the language you are using will help to inform how you are able to relate to your community. Examining my language asks me to slow down, and commit to holding the honesty of my words instead of just throwing them around and trying to make the biggest splash.