Do existentialist authors take responsibility for language?

[toastyy]

I'm having some difficulty grasping this topic for my class in existentialism: "A theorist must take responsibility for the language of his/her theory. Do the existentialist authors let us down in this? Do they too really acquiesce in the language of the philosophies they seek to supplant?". We've discussed famous existentialists like Nietzsche and Sartre. Any guidance would be appreciated .

[Only_Humean]

I'm having some difficulty grasping this topic for my class in existentialism: "A theorist must take responsibility for the language of his/her theory. Do the existentialist authors let us down in this? Do they too really acquiesce in the language of the philosophies they seek to supplant?". We've discussed famous existentialists like Nietzsche and Sartre. Any guidance would be appreciated .

Moved to HoQ.

[Flannel Jesus]

What does that mean? How does one take responsibility for the language of one's theory? If you figure out what the question means, the answer will become more apparent.

[Smears]

I'm having some difficulty grasping this topic for my class in existentialism: "A theorist must take responsibility for the language of his/her theory. Do the existentialist authors let us down in this? Do they too really acquiesce in the language of the philosophies they seek to supplant?". We've discussed famous existentialists like Nietzsche and Sartre. Any guidance would be appreciated .

Well, if they introduce some jargon, then they've got to define it such that it obeys the necessary rules of language and that doesn't make contradictions and what have you necessary, or maybe even by definition invalidate other parts of the theory.

Like basically you don't want to create terms the definitions of which entail contradictions or incompatibility with things that are known, or with speculations that are necessary to the theory itself.

[toastyy]

Well, if they introduce some jargon, then they've got to define it such that it obeys the necessary rules of language and that doesn't make contradictions and what have you necessary, or maybe even by definition invalidate other parts of the theory.

Like basically you don't want to create terms the definitions of which entail contradictions or incompatibility with things that are known, or with speculations that are necessary to the theory itself.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. I think part of it is that we're talking about theorists who introduce new terms (or create new definitions for existing ones). From the original question, I read: Do existentialist authors simply accept the language established by the philosophers that they are in argument with. The prof specifically mentioned authors like Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, Marcel, Buber. Is anyone familiar with these theorists? If someone could provide an example to make the topic easier to understand I would be grateful. Somehow I have to stretch this paper across 2-3 pages (This doesn't like much but it's worth 30% of my grade!).
Thanks for your responses!

[toastyy]

What does that mean? How does one take responsibility for the language of one's theory? If you figure out what the question means, the answer will become more apparent.

My professor is pretty vague and even cryptic.. The only idea I have is that philosophers must establish their own definitions for ambiguous terms in their work, but that's not really much to go on.

[Smears]

I think that some of those guys have different definitions for the same words. They are basically battling over who gets to define things like, "being" and "objective" and all those other silly existential words.

[toastyy]

I think that some of those guys have different definitions for the same words. They are basically battling over who gets to define things like, "being" and "objective" and all those other silly existential words.

Ah I thought it might be something like that.. I remember my prof mentioning the meaninglessness of words like "concept". Do existentialists tend to avoid using these ambiguous terms? With regards to the topic, do they simply accept the definitions established by the philosophers and build upon them? How is that significant? I'm starting to get the idea but I don't understand the significance (or how I'm going to stretch it across 2-3 pages).
Any input is appreciated, thank you so much for your help!

[Flannel Jesus]

What does that mean? How does one take responsibility for the language of one's theory? If you figure out what the question means, the answer will become more apparent.

My professor is pretty vague and even cryptic..

Yeah, I can see that. I hate it when teachers ask questions like that. You should tell your teacher he should take more responsibility for his own language lol. He's being very irresponsible asking vague questions like that.

[toastyy]

I've broken down the question to better understand it and I think I've got a better idea of what I need to address. I've included it below, but aside from that I have one important question: do existentialist authors like Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, or Marcel avoid using ambiguous terms like "being", etc?

If you have the time, I would love some feedback on the breakdown I have below:

A theorist must take responsibility for the language of his/her theory.
- They create their own definitions for abstract words like concept, mind, thought. When philosophers pick at the works of other theorists, they contest the meaning of those terms rather than the theory itself.
- Ultimately, they compete with other philosophers to universally define these words.
- When introducing jargon, they must define it so that it obeys the rules of language and so it does not make contradictions to the theory that they contribute to.

Do the existentialist authors let us down in this? Do they too simply accept [acquiesce] the language of the philosophies they seek to replace [supplant]?
- Are they really letting us down? Is it a bad thing that they don’t deal with ambiguities of language? Perhaps by accepting the language of the philosophy, they can focus on the big picture - the crux of the argument put forth by the other author.
- When arguing with an idea put forward by another philosopher, do existentialists accept the definitions established by the other author? When philosophers argue, they contest the meanings of abstract words, whereas existentialists address the idea itself, while simply accepting the language of the authors that they discuss. (I don't know if this last point is true...)
Thanks!

[Only_Humean]

I've broken down the question to better understand it and I think I've got a better idea of what I need to address. I've included it below, but aside from that I have one important question: do existentialist authors like Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, or Marcel avoid using ambiguous terms like "being", etc?

Well, insofar as Heidegger is existentialist, he certainly doesn't; on the contrary. He saidsomething along the lines of "Intelligibility is suicide for philosophy". And continental philosophy is often ready to defend itself from charges of obscurantism by claiming that intelligibility/clarity is simply a hierarchically-imposed constraint on dialectic. Hence the whole Sokal affair.

[toastyy]

Well, insofar as Heidegger is existentialist, he certainly doesn't; on the contrary. He saidsomething along the lines of "Intelligibility is suicide for philosophy". And continental philosophy is often ready to defend itself from charges of obscurantism by claiming that intelligibility/clarity is simply a hierarchically-imposed constraint on dialectic. Hence the whole Sokal affair.

Forgive me, the double negative has me a little confused.. Do you mean that Heidegger did not use theoretical terms? That seems to be the case considering the rest of your post. And what do you mean by a hierarchically-imposed constraint on dialectic? The reference to the "Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity" gave me a good laugh

[Only_Humean]

Forgive me, the double negative has me a little confused.. Do you mean that Heidegger did not use theoretical terms? That seems to be the case considering the rest of your post.

He didn't strive to avoid ambiguity or communicate clearly. He uses tautologies, oxymorons, undefined neologisms... “Enownment always means enowning as en-ownment”. An uncharitable reading might even be tempted to condemn it as a load of old balls.

He's always polarised debate, though; the first paragraph of the link sums it up nicely -

If you are a believer, Martin Heidegger was an unparalleled modern thinker, whose profound diagnoses of the condition of mankind in the twentieth century rightly dominated large tracts of culture, and directed the finest subsequent work in the humanities. If you are not, he is a dismal windbag, whose influence has been a total disaster, and whose affinity with the Nazis merely indicates the vacuum where, in most other philosophers, there would have been a combination of common sense and rudimentary decency.

And what do you mean by a hierarchically-imposed constraint on dialectic?

The view that logic and reason are not tools by which people assess arguments for veracity or consistency, but tools by which existing power structures (particularly the white middle-class male strongholds of 'traditional' academia and government) enforce their hegemony of thought and attempt to deny/crush the opposition of authentic experience and individual interpretations where they may differ from The Mainstream.

[photographer]

Heidegger is precisely the exemplar of an "existentialist" who took control of his language, thereby avoiding having his thought express an "inverted Platonism" (Nietzsche) or naively introducing metaphysical elements like the "in itself" and "for itself" into his thoughts (Sartre). In fact, it might well be said that in Being & Time Heidegger presents a new vocabulary for philosophy out of an inner necessity.

[Only_Humean]

Heidegger is precisely the exemplar of an "existentialist" who took control of his language, thereby avoiding having his thought express an "inverted Platonism" (Nietzsche) or naively introducing metaphysical elements like the "in itself" and "for itself" into his thoughts (Sartre). In fact, it might well be said that in Being & Time Heidegger presents a new vocabulary for philosophy out of an inner necessity.

The question is taking responsibility, not taking control. I can take control of a car and drive down the wrong side of the road steaming drunk; that's not taking responsibility.

[photographer]

Heidegger may be on the wrong side of the road if your philosophy hails from the Scottish Enlightenment, but he is not the least bit inebriated. Neither do the postmodern traits you've associated with him have any standing in his thinking.

[Only_Humean]

Heidegger may be on the wrong side of the road if your philosophy hails from the Scottish Enlightenment, but he is not the least bit inebriated. Neither do the postmodern traits you've associated with him have any standing in his thinking.

My name's a little misleading I appreciate what he's trying to do, the phenomenalist project is not something I'm against per se from a coldly rationalist background. I just don't think (with a few exceptions) that the path he took sheds any great light on things, and in many cases only obscures matters further.

And for clarity, the pomo criticism is aimed more squarely at the later Francophone theorists - Derrida, Lacan, Irigaray and so on - and not Heidegger, who was far from averse to political power structures that enforced a party line.