Spiritual Idealist Bernardo Kastrup Slanders Hossenfelder, Coyne, Pigliucci, Etc: Should they Sue Him?

 Probably not.

The following passages are from Bernardo Kastrup’s blog Bernardo Kastrup, PhD, PhD: Meditations on life, the universe, and everything.

Kastrup on the American philosopher Tim Maudlin:

“[Tim] Maudlin’s unbecoming, unacademic and rude behaviour made it clear that such was not the case. He came across to me as a nasty and crass street brawler, not a thinker. [] Nor do I find his ungrounded, tendentious, hand-waving and wishful technical statements worthy of in-depth discussion in debate format. I am sure he can continue to believe in his unfalsifiable, pseudo-scientific fantasies without my help.”

Kastrup on the German theoretical physicist and science communicator Sabine Hossenfelder:

“Sabine [Hossenfelder] has a big mouth and seems to be willing to almost flat-out lie in order to NOT look bad when confronted on a point she doesn’t have a good counter for. [] Her rhetorical assertiveness is, at least sometimes, a facade that hides a surprising lack of actual substance.”

“[I]t is entirely possible for someone who sincerely considers themselves honest to arbitrarily dismiss substantive points, deflect and mislead to a level that flirts with lying, just to save face and avoid being pinned down during a debate, thereby protecting their public image at the cost of someone else’s.”

“I am now convinced, to my own satisfaction, that Hossenfelder does not engage according to what I consider to be the minimum level of intellectual honesty required to render the debate fruitful.”

“I am not doing this just to gratuitously and repeatedly stick my finger in the wound; I’m not trying to do character assassination. [Sic!] [] by flat-out misrepresenting her own output. I ought to defend myself against that overt suggestion, which I consider to have been rhetorical and dishonest, violating all basic debate ethics.”

Kastrup on the American biologist Jerry Coyne:

“Dim-witted biologist [].”

“The target of Jerry Berry’s [Jerry Coyne] latest rant and rage has been an essay I wrote.”

“This is one of those embarrassing passages in which Jerry Berry [Jerry Coyne] unwittingly makes painfully clear to the whole world the depths of his philosophical ignorance.”

Kastrup on the Skeptical Inquirer magazine:

“What makes the profound ignorance betrayed by the ‘review’ even worse is the conceitedness and pretentiousness that oozes through it.”

“How can a magazine with ambitions to ‘promote scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason’ publish this kind of juvenile garbage?”

“If I were a subscriber to the Skeptical Inquirer, I would feel offended by this ‘review.’ [].”

“[W]hat kind of psychological disposition makes one feel entitled to publicly criticize something one has admittedly not understood?”

Kastrup on the English philosopher Philip Goff:

“Since he [Philip Goff] was a cosmopsychist just a couple of years ago, then a constitutive panpsychist for the duration of one book, and now seemingly something else already again, who knows what his position will be by the time we debate?”

“Many academic philosophers love to indulge in these tortuous conceptual games that achieve lift off from the firm ground of reality and end up in some other galaxy. This is no news. But I confess to feeling disappointed at Philip [Goff], an academic philosopher I thought would see through this nonsense. I regret that so much energy and time was wasted, during the debate [].”

Kastrup on the American neuroscientist Michael Graziano and the British philosopher Keith Frankish:

“[Keith] Frankish has accomplished precisely nothing in his long essay; at least nothing more than tortuous obfuscation and hand-waving.”

“Not only that, he [Michael Graziano] is a Princeton neuroscientist who couldn’t even weave a conceptually consistent counter-argument in his ‘reply’ of little more than 800 words.”

“[T]o watch him [neuroscientist Michael Graziano] babble incoherently in front of you and think, ‘this is actually happening.’”

“[W]hen it comes to Graziano and [Keith] Frankish, things are different. They truly are emperors with no clothes.”

“Their [Graziano and Frankish] nonsense is toxic, corrosive and pernicious, not only because it is nonsensical, but because — if believed — it could undermine the very foundations of our secular ethics and moral codes.”

“Our emperors [Frankish and Graziano] are parading proudly in front of us, but they really have no clothes. Watch carefully, ignore the posturing cacophony around you, and you shall see it in horror.”

Kastrup on the American philosopher and biologist Massimo Pigliucci:

“[T]here is little of substance in [Massimo] Pigliucci’s essay to actually rebut or respond to. [] Unlike Pigliucci, I shall comment based on substance. Yet, I shall also comment vigorously and honestly, not through a smokescreen of passive aggression.”

Kastrup on the American philosopher, neuroscientist and author Sam Harris:

“[Sam] Harris seems to be, at best, confused and ignorant of the facts; or, at worse, wilfully biased in his appraisal of the available data. [] The irony would be sweet if it weren’t concerning as far as what it seems to say about Sam Harris.”

Kastrup on “academic philosophers”:

“[S]ome seem to react to what I have accomplished with covetousness — as opposed to the objectivity that academics are expected to embody — is both a serious problem and a missed opportunity for desperately-needed change. [] many academic philosophers have abandoned reality and now spend their time playing entirely abstract conceptual games of no relevance to you and me. But they still insist that what they do is ‘real’ philosophy. [] Academic philosophy is funded by public money paid out of our taxes. As such, it must be relevant to us.”

Kastrup on the American philosopher Daniel Dennett and the English neuropsychologist Nicholas Humphrey:

“And [Daniel] Dennett isn’t alone. Others, like psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, suggest the same thing [] Despite being a surreal display of in-your-face incoherence, the fact that the video is cladded with the gentle and trust-inspiring demeanor of an affable old man [].”

Kastrup on the British psychologist and writer Susan Blackmore:

“I rather think she [Susan Blackmore] and the other magicians are fooling themselves; the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing.”

Kastrup on “fundamentalist atheists”:

“There is a significant way in which fundamentalist atheists may be unconsciously attributing to others their own cognitive limitations. In psychological terms, this is called a projection. By passing judgment onto their own projections according to the rules of their own private games, they reveal parts of their psychological makeup but assert nothing of relevance about the nature of reality.”

And, finally, Kastrup on yours truly:

“It makes no argument, probably because Murphy just isn’t intellectually capable of making one. [] we can only assume that he is what he seems to be: a spiteful nobody living on social security and spouting his grievances from a rented bedroom). His piece is petty, small-minded, and childish.”

So should Philip Goff, Keith Frankish, Sam Harris, Sabine Hossenfelder, Massimo Pigliucci, Nicholas Humphrey, Jerry Coyne, Tim Maudlin, etc. sue Bernardo Kastrup for his insulting and slanderous claims?

Probably not. 

Two Contemporary Wittgensteinians Fight Against Scientism in Philosophy

 

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The British philosophers P.M.S. Hacker (Peter Hacker) and Paul Horwich speak out against scientism in contemporary analytic philosophy.

[See my previous essay, ‘Two Worshippers of Wittgenstein: Paul Horwich and Peter Hacker’.]

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“[Scientism is] an exaggerated trust in the efficacy of the methods of natural science applied to all areas of investigation (as in philosophy, the social sciences, and the humanities). [] [S]ome scholars, as well as political and religious leaders, have also adopted it as a pejorative term [].”

— See source here.

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Dating back to the late 19th century, many philosophers, religious commentators and others have stated that bad philosophy “mimics science”. More relevantly to the theme of this essay, this has also been said specifically about analytic philosophy. [See here and here.]

One account of philosophical scientism I came across (which mentions Paul Horwich, who’ll be discussed in a moment) just seems like fantasy to me. Here is that account:

“It is this scientistic nature that in Horwich’s reading of Wittgenstein is based on the illusion that the philosopher, just like the scientist in the empirical sciences, can make fundamental discoveries if only he uses the same kind of methods the scientist applies to analyze his a posteriori data.”

The fantasy here isn’t that of philosophers attempting to mimic science. The fantasy is believing that all?/most?/many? philosophers have ever done such a thing. More particularly, the fantasy is believing that analytic philosophers particularly have attempted to make “fundamental discoveries” by “us[ing] the same kind of methods the scientist applies to analyze his a posteriori data”.

It was Ludwig Wittgenstein particularly who started this (as it were) anti-scientism war — at least against the philosophers he had in mind at the time. [Mainly the logical positivists. See here too.]

The British philosopher Paul Horwich continues this (Wittgensteinian) anti-scientism-in-philosophy war.

Sure, the charge of “scientism” (with its “hissing suffix”) might well have been true of some philosophers who were around when Wittgenstein was writing (say, from the 1920s to the early 1950s). However, has it really been true of all analytic philosophers since the 1920s until today?…

Has it been true simply of most of them?

Many of them?

Or just some of them?

It can be argued that there was never any literal mimicking of science by any philosophers anyway — even back in Wittgenstein’s day. Sure, materialists, naturalists and positivists admired science. Indeed, they looked to science for philosophical inspiration. However, none of that is the same thing as actually “imitating science”.

So perhaps Paul Horwich’s distinction here is actually between those philosophers who self-consciously mimic science, and those who somehow mimic science by default (or by habit).

Thus, perhaps Horwich has the latter philosophers in mind.

However, even this qualification can be questioned.

Hacker and Williamson on Science and Philosophy

On the one hand, “philosophy” (actually, Horwich and Hacker mean analytic philosophy) gets it in the ear for its (as it’s put) apriorism. On the other hand, it’s also accused of scientism. That said, Paul Horwich’s additional argument is that philosophy could never actually be scientific. Thus, all it can do is mimic science in a rather pedestrian and/or naive way.

So let’s move on to British philosophers P.M.S. Hacker (Peter Hacker) and Timothy Williamson here.

One can see how a Wittgensteinian would have serious problems with what Timothy Williamson says about the relation of philosophy to science.

Peter Hacker’s ‘critical notice’ of Timothy Williamson’s book The Philosophy of Philosophy.

Peter Hacker writes:

“Three themes dominate the book [i.e., Timothy Williamson’s Philosophy of Philosophy]. First, that it is false that the a priori methodology of philosophy is profoundly unlike the a posteriori methods of natural science; indeed that very distinction allegedly obscures underlying similarities. Second, that the difference in subject matter between philosophy and science is less deep than supposed; ‘In particular, few philosophical questions are conceptual questions in any distinctive sense’. Third, that much contemporary philosophy is vitiated by supposing that evidence in philosophy consists of intuitions, which successful theory must explain.”

As already hinted at, Wittgensteinians don’t like “philosophical apriorism”. And they don’t like philosophical scientism either. Hacker believes that Williamson is guilty of both these sins against Wittgensteinian philosophy.

In any case, perhaps all that the words “a priori methodology of philosophy” basically mean is that such philosophy isn’t… well, science. In other words, philosophers don’t employ (to use Peter Hacker’s words) “measurement, observation or experiment”. [Note: observation is the odd one out here.]

In detail.

In the passage above, Hacker quotes Williamson stating that

“few philosophical questions are conceptual questions in any distinctive sense’”.

Perhaps it would have been better if Williamson stated the following instead:

Few philosophical questions are purely conceptual in any distinctive sense’.

Arguably, Hacker, on the other hand, believes that (virtually?) all philosophy should be conceptual analysis. (He comes very close to actually stating this. See here.) Yet Williamson too is wrong to play down “conceptual questions” entirely. Thus, both Hacker and Williamson — at least as quoted here — seem to offer their readers equally extreme positions.

As for “intuitions”.

Hacker has it that Williamson believes that

“evidence in philosophy consists of intuitions, which successful theory must explain”.

Many naturalists and physicalists are suspicious of intuitions too. Yet they usually aren’t also Wittgensteinians. In addition, explaining intuitions isn’t the same as placing them on a untouchable pedestal.

In any case, Peter Hacker also claims that Timothy Williamson sees “fundamental similarities between philosophical and scientific knowledge”. More specifically, Williamson is said to make a move from the “armchair” to “knowledge of truths about the external environment”.

Yet Hacker also hints at (as it were) philosophical apriorism in the following passage:

“It consists of thinking, without any special interaction with the world beyond the armchair, such as measurement, observation or experiment would typically involve.”

Whatever the answers to these questions are, Hacker also says that Williamson “holds that philosophy can discover truths about reality by reflection alone”. Despite that, Williamson also believes that “some philosophical truths are confirmable by experiments”.

That last passage may simply mean that even though “philosophical truths” are “armchair” phenomena, then there’s still nothing to stop them from being backed-up (or “confirmable”) by scientific experiments — or by other a posteriori factors. (This is a little like Laurence BonJour’s position on a priori statements.)…

Actually, if a philosophical truth is indeed a philosophical truth, then some philosophers would argue that it can hardly be contradicted by scientific experiments. And — almost as a consequence of this — it must be confirmable by them too. However, all that would depend on whether experiments can have any impact on such philosophical truths at all.

Thus, in the case of certain philosophical truths at least, it can also be said that scientific experiments can neither confirm nor disconfirm them. In other words, experiments are basically irrelevant to most (or perhaps simply many) philosophical truths.

Peter Hacker’s ‘critical notice’ on Timothy Williamson’s book.

Hacker offers us more on Williamson’s position:

“[S]ince philosophical ways of thinking are no different in kind from other ways, philosophical questions are not different in kind from other questions. Most importantly, philosophy is no more a linguistic or conceptual inquiry than physics.”

As for Williamson himself, he’s attempting to bridge the gap between philosophy and science when he says that “[p]hilosophy, like any other science (including mathematics) [ ] has evidence for its discoveries”. Williamson then says (i.e., against people like Peter Hacker) that “philosophy is no more a linguistic or conceptual inquiry than physics”.

Does all the above basically mean that philosophy both is and is not like science?

Two Worshippers of Wittgenstein: Paul Horwich and Peter Hacker

 

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Paul Horwich (left) and P.M.S. Hacker (right)

[See my next essay, ‘Two Contemporary Wittgensteinians Fight Against Scientism in Philosophy’.]

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(i) Introduction

(ii) The Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry

(iii) Wittgenstein on the True Nature of Philosophy

(iv) P.M.S. Hacker: A Wittgensteinian

(v) Consciousness as a Pseudo-Problem

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“Is Ludwig Wittgenstein truly a hero of philosophy? [] I do think that a lot of people do not regard him as a true hero of philosophy and are too afraid to speak up because everyone else thinks he is a hero of philosophy. []

“I understand that LW was a fascinating figure majorly because of his highly unusual mannerisms and oracular pronouncements. [] [H]e thought most philosophical problems arose out of a misuse of language []. There have been dudes who have stated that we need to calm down about this Wittgenstein dude: Timothy Williamson [is one of them].”

— Ayokunle Afuye (Source can be found here.)

“[Paul Horwich’s] book [] differs in substantial respects from what can already be found in the literature. For it is argued here that [Wittgenstein’s] fundamental idea is not a new conception of language (as most commentators have supposed), but rather a revolutionary conception of what philosophy is []

“Thus the first aim of the present work is to [] explain and justify [Wittgenstein’s] view of how philosophy should (and should not) be conducted, and of what it might achieve.”

— See source here.

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Introduction

The English philosopher Paul Horwich wrote the following autobiographical introduction to his book Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy:

“As a schoolboy, I happened upon the Tractatus in Manchester’s Central Library. It was somehow impressive, and I wished I could understand it.”

Is it creepy to find Horwich’s own introduction to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work creepy?

Let me explain why the word “creepy” was used…

How could a book be “impressive” to a person who also admits that he didn’t “understand” it?…

Unless the Tractatus was impressive to the young Horwich precisely because he couldn’t understand it.

Horwich’s bit of autobiography seems to be (more than) a hint at the fact that he got into Wittgenstein before he even understood a word of his work. So perhaps the esoteric and gnomic nature of Wittgenstein’s prose style (at least as found in the Tractatus) was part of the appeal for Horwich. Indeed, perhaps it was the entirety of the appeal to the young Horwich.

Horwich’s words actually remind me of Julian Baggini’s account of the poststructuralist (or deconstructionist) French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

In an article called ‘Think Jacques Derrida was a charlatan? Look again’, Baggini wrote the following words:

“One of Derrida’s examiners at his prestigious high school, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, wrote of his work: ‘The answers are brilliant in the very same way that they are obscure.’”

Perhaps this examiner was simply bowled over — or even hoodwinked — by Derrida’s obscurantist writing style. More relevantly, that writing style became one of the (main) reasons why so many people became Derrida’s disciples.

So, just like Horwich’s own personal introduction to Wittgenstein, how did this examiner know that Derrida’s answers were “brilliant” at the very same time as acknowledging that they were “obscure”? Yet Derrida’s answers were clearly not obscure enough for this examiner to recognise that they were brilliant.

Perhaps Derrida’s answers weren’t obscure at all, or they couldn’t actually have been known to have been brilliant (i.e., precisely because they were obscure).

The same line argument can be aimed at Michel Foucault’s words on Derrida. According to Baggini again, Foucault once stated that Derrida’s work was “either an F or an A+”.

To sum this introduction up.

Perhaps it’s indeed cheap and unphilosophical (although still possibly true) to say that many people believe that Wittgenstein was a great and profound philosopher because many people believe that Wittgenstein was a great and profound philosopher. (As already seen, Ayokunle Afuye hints at this in the opening quote.)

Yet, logically, this isn’t also to say that Wittgenstein isn’t a great and profound philosopher. It’s only to say that many people ride on the wave (or assumption) that Wittgenstein is a great and profound philosopher. And that assumption generates some of the (what I take to be) highfalutin and adoring bullshit written and said about the Austrian philosopher.

The Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry

“The only thing that mattered to them [the ‘Wittgenstein cult’] was the question: ‘What did Wittgenstein really mean?’. [] There wasn’t a question as to what’s the best position here [] but what did Wittgenstein really mean?”

— Crispin Sartwell [See source here.]

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Here’s a general overview of Paul Horwich’s take on Wittgenstein.

Much of Horwich’s book (i.e., Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy) is made up of defences and expositions of Wittgenstein’s analyses.

So do Horwich’s portentous and universal conclusions about Wittgenstein’s philosophy follow from his own defences and expositions?

This isn’t to suggest that Wittgenstein himself was wrong on any of the issues discussed in that book. Instead, what may be wrong are the grand “metaphilosophical” conclusions Horwich and others have derived from their defences and expositions of Wittgenstein.

In any case, it just seems so absolutist and cringeworthy to be against all philosophy. This is especially the case when philosophising against philosophy. Of course, some workers in the Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry dispute that Wittgenstein actually was anti-philosophy…

However, Horwich doesn’t seem to.

[All this is related to the Wittgensteinian-theory-against-theory contradiction, which Horwich claims doesn’t exist. This will be tackled in a later essay.]

And this is where those “Wittgenstein scholars” can be brought in.

So how much of an expert does one need to be in order to say anything about Wittgenstein?

Indeed, how much of an expert does one need to be in order to criticise a Wittgenstein expert?

And this is also where the Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry steps in. [See my ‘The Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry’.]

Paul Horwich himself works in the Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry.

The following passage is Horwich's own industrial product:

“[A]n account of [Wittgenstein’s] mature philosophy can be extracted from Part I of the Philosophical Investigations, and that this work should be taken to override any other writings in tension with it.”

[As quoted by another part of the Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry — the British Wittgenstein Society.]

Now how can anyone make such a categorical claim about all of Wittgenstein’s philosophy?

Indeed, how can a Wittgensteinian make such a categorical claim?

By what possible argument, evidence or whatever could someone know (or simply demonstrate) that Part 1 of the Philosophical Investigations “override[s] any other writings in tension with it”?

Wittgenstein on the True Nature of Philosophy

Paul Horwich (in the first chapter of Wittgenstein’s Metaphilosophy) sums up his prime position when he writes the following words:

“Wittgenstein’s most important insight is encapsulated in his remark that ‘Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language’.”

Of course, there is some truth to that quoted statement from Wittgenstein. The problem is that Wittgenstein’s worshippers (or mere disciples) take it to be an absolute and all-encompassing truth.

It’s also odd that Horwich should states this:

“Arguably, Wittgenstein’s singular achievement was to have appreciated the true nature of philosophy.”

Surely the phrase “true nature of philosophy” is precisely the kind of phrase Wittgenstein himself would have hated.

Or perhaps I should really say this: Wittgenstein should have hated this phrase.

I offer that qualification because this is just my own interpretation of Wittgenstein. So unless Wittgenstein ever actually wrote “I hate the phrase ‘true nature of philosophy’”, then perhaps all we have is interpretation — at least on this precise matter…

And, precisely because of Wittgenstein’s unique and obscure prose style, that’s why we have the Wittgenstein Interpretation Industry.

P.M.S. Hacker: A Wittgensteinian

The English philosopher P.M.S. Hacker (1939-) also offers us what he takes to be (to use Paul Horwich’s words again) “the true nature of philosophy”.

Firstly, Hacker tells us that Wittgenstein was largely responsible for the linguistic turn in philosophy. This turn in philosophy became fashionable for a certain period (say, for two decades). Then it largely went out of fashion. Yet Hacker still believes that “it is what philosophy is good for”.

One result of the linguistic turn is that “Wittgensteinian quietists” (such as Horwich and Hacker themselves) still attempt to “dissolve philosophical problems, rather than solve them”.

So let’s discuss Peter Hacker in a little more detail.

Hacker is useful here because he perfectly encapsulates what a Wittgensteinian is.

Indeed, Hacker hasn’t only interpreted Wittgenstein for a living: he has attempted to become (as it were) at one with the Master.

Hacker expresses the Wittgensteinian position perfectly in the following passage:

“[I’m only concerned with] what makes sense and what does not. The bounds of sense can be violated by the misuse of technical, not ordinary expressions no less than the misuse of ordinary ones.”

[This is taken from Hacker’s ‘Languages, Minds and Brains’ contribution to the book Mindwaves.]

Yet, on the surface at least, surely it is taking a tremendous liberty when a philosopher, scientist or academic uses an everyday word in a completely different way. This is Hacker’s take on that issue:

“And, in particular, [expressions] can and — in the cases I have examined — are violated by unconsciously crossing ordinary uses of expressions with half-understood technical ones.”

(As we shall see, this passage is especially germane when it comes to the later subject of consciousness.)

In any case, Hacker believes in what’s been called the “linguistic-therapeutic approach” to philosophy, as originally advanced by Wittgenstein himself. Basically, then, Hacker believes that the words and concepts used by everyday people should be taken as (as it were) given by philosophers.

Consequently, Hacker sees the role of philosophy (as did Wittgenstein) as one of dissolving (or resolving) philosophical problems by examining (among other things) how words are actually used in everyday life.

More precisely, Hacker deems some?/many?/most? philosophical problems to be primarily conceptual in nature. To him, this also means that these problems can be dissolved (or resolved) purely by “linguistic analysis”.

All this lead us to Paul Horwich again and his stance on what he calls “pseudo-problems”.

Consciousness as a Pseudo-Problem

It was almost inevitable that Horwich would apply his “therapeutic” approach to consciousness. Predictably, he believes that the “mystery” (although not all philosophers use that word!) of consciousness can be dissolved in this way. That is done because “the problem of consciousness” can be shown to be a “pseudo-problem”.

Personally, I am somewhat sympathetic to this account of the problem of consciousness. However, because I’m neither a “Wittgenstein scholar” nor a worshipper of the philosopher, I don’t take every word Wittgenstein wrote (or uttered) on this subject as gospel.

In any case, one problem I have is with Horwich’s resurrection of the 1930’s term “pseudo-problem”. This is his definition of that term:

“[A] pseudo-question or pseudo-problem is one that we should not attempt to answer — not because it is too difficult, but because it there is every reason to expect that no objectively correct answer exists.”

Then the (as it were) logic of pseudo-problems is specifically applied to consciousness. Horwich tells us that his job is

“to explain sympathetically Wittgenstein’s view that the traditional and still widely debated perplexities of consciousness are indeed the result of recognizable defective assumptions rather than the incompleteness of scientific knowledge and of our conceptual repertoire”.

This philosophical position on the philosophy of consciousness is also adopted by Peter Hacker.

Hacker believes that the “problems” and “mysteries” of consciousness dissolve once we realise that everyday words are either being (to use his own word) “misused”, or that new technical terms simply don’t have any substantive content.

(For example, Hacker believes that the term “qualia” is a, as Daniel Dennett has also put it, “philosopher’s artefact”. [See Hacker here.])

This philosophical stance is related to what was once called ordinary language philosophy.

This was a philosophy (rather than a specific school) which saw traditional philosophical problems as being rooted in the misunderstandings philosophers — and also scientists in Hacker’s case! — make when they distort (or simply change) everyday words. The upshot here is that using everyday words in new ways can often create philosophical problems, rather than help philosophers and scientists solve them.