I’m so happy we can now add “epistemic closure” to the list of terms that have both a technical meaning in philosophy and a different meaning in popular conversation. Much hilarity results from imagining Jonah Goldberg muttering “I know I have hands. I know that if I have hands, I must not be a brain in a vat…but I don’t know I’m not a brain in a vat! Dammit!“
Recent comments
- 160serpentinegmailcom on An open letter from the populists of the 1890s to the populists of today
- 160serpentinegmailcom on Trumpism, local and global
- eric on A wreck by any other name: on the inadequacy of “Great Recession”
- Brad DeLong on A wreck by any other name: on the inadequacy of “Great Recession”
- Alex on Hitchens minor on the English and their history
- David in San Jose on Trump, populism, Hofstadter, Heer.
- eric on What does Paul Campos know that the Public Policy Institute of California does not?
- ari on What does Paul Campos know that the Public Policy Institute of California does not?
- eric on Keeping a finger on gold
- ari on Keeping a finger on gold
- kevin on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- eric on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- ari on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- eric on “Eight schools account for half of all history professors.”
- eric on A life well lived!
This is officially an award-winning blog
Archives
- September 2021
- July 2017
- April 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- November 2015
- August 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- January 2013
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- May 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
The Edge of the American West 
26 comments
April 24, 2010 at 11:13 am
Charlieford
I was with you till you went off on that tangent about the Value Added Tax . . .
April 24, 2010 at 11:43 am
jazzbumpa
Well, now you’ve piqued my curiosity, and I want to see the whole list
Cheers!
JzB
April 24, 2010 at 1:57 pm
NM
The ones that come to mind are “begging the question” and “moral relativism.”
April 24, 2010 at 2:10 pm
ari
May I broaden the list to include terms that have specific meanings in an academic context and very different meanings when used by the hoi polloi? Yes? Thanks. Then I’d include “cognitive dissonance” and maybe “historicize” (which, I suppose, is more a question of different connotations than different denotations).
April 24, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Daniel Lindquist
“Realist”, “idealist”, “materialist”, “rationalist”, “pragmatist”, and “utilitarian” can all go on the list.
April 24, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Jer.k.
Whatever thing in a vat Jonah Goldberg might be, it wouldn’t be a brain.
April 24, 2010 at 5:04 pm
NM
“Hedonist” is another pet peeve.
April 24, 2010 at 5:08 pm
Charlieford
I’d like to see “systematically” go away.
April 24, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Kieran
“Unpacking”, but for terrible reasons and in the opposite direction.
April 24, 2010 at 7:03 pm
dana
It’s been pissing me off all week. Especially because it’s not a phrase that regularly comes up in non-philosophical contexts; it sounds like they wanted something that sounded smart and looked up other words for “knowledge” and “closed.”
At least with “begging the question” or “the exception proves the rule” there are good reasons for the (mistaken) non-technical usage. This one just screams “I’m trying to be smarter than I am.”
April 24, 2010 at 8:32 pm
TF Smith
Yes, but have you booked your stateroom on the Spain and Portugual riverboat cruise yet?…
A week on a boat with Dick Morris sounds like the seventh circle on a bad day…
April 24, 2010 at 8:50 pm
ben
Just today Barry Stroud said that he knows that there are mountains and that he therefore knows there’s a mind-external reality, and if anyone knows something about the skeptic it’s him.
(This only mildly misrepresents what actually happened.)
April 25, 2010 at 4:59 am
Charlieford
“I’m trying to be smarter than I am.”
Isn’t that a good thing?
Perhaps you meant, “I’m trying to seem smarter than I am”?
April 25, 2010 at 5:15 am
Matt
“Realist” has several different meanings within the academy, even, depending on whether you’re talking to a philosopher (several sub-meanings there, even), a law professor, or an IR professor. (The latter two are somewhat related but not the same.) The same goes for “positivism”, where it means something different, and has different origins, in legal philosophy and philosophy more generally.
“Deconstruct” is another example of the general point. I have to admit that I don’t really know what deconstruction in the formal sense means, but I suspect it’s something quite different from what, say, Keven Drum means when he says he’s going to “deconstruct” something.
April 25, 2010 at 7:44 am
matt w
And “analysis”! I see all these people calling themselves “analysts” who couldn’t take a limit to save their lives, let alone carry out an epsilon-delta proof. Do they even know that if they’re doing a complex analysis it should be half imaginary?
April 25, 2010 at 8:10 am
ben
That’s not what analysts do, matt.
April 25, 2010 at 8:29 am
kid bitzer
“philosophy”
April 25, 2010 at 10:22 am
md 20/400
Linguist
April 25, 2010 at 11:17 am
silbey
Revisionist
April 25, 2010 at 4:02 pm
pv
Thanks for reminding me I’m only mildly stupid (there’s a lot I don’t know, but I’m willing to look it up) rather than totally stupid (I won’t understand it when I do look it up). When I read about this “epistemic closure” discussion, I looked up the concept to understand it, and kept thinking “OK, I think I understand this…sort of…but what does THIS have to do with what they’re talking about? I guess…um…Maybe it’s…OK, I’m totally stupid.” Back to only feeling mildly stupid, which is good. OK, I’m probably totally stupid, but not quite as stupid as I thought.
April 25, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Daniel Lindquist
“(This only mildly misrepresents what actually happened.)”
How mildly? Was it spoken in propria persona?
April 25, 2010 at 6:00 pm
ben
It was in propria persona, but he said immediately afterwards that of course it wouldn’t satisfy the skeptic and wasn’t meant to (something that had come up earlier).
I confess that it was warm and I was tired and sitting in a comfortable chair, so I don’t remember what he said about skepticism earlier on.
April 25, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Mario
“aesthetics” is also on that list.
April 27, 2010 at 5:47 am
TF Smith
Maybe Jonah’s a brain in a vat in a comfortable chair…
April 27, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Vance
In the Times, Sanchez admits repurposing the term.
April 28, 2010 at 2:11 pm
Vance
Off the (expired) topic, the New Yorker has finally caught up with Eric.