delayed response - "philosophy"

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

Stephen Belknap wrote:
 I submit that you won't find
>any more satisfactory than the fu'ivla.  Actually, philosophy seems to
>me to be a good example of why fu'ivla are important.

Actually, I think that philsophy is an excellent example of a word that
should NOT be a fu'ivla, for the very reasons that Stephen gave in his
post.  To make it clear why, I ask this:  which language are you
borrowing the word from?

If you borrow the word from the original Greek, then you are implying a
constraint to the original Greek concept of philosophy and NOT to the
hodgepodge of derived American meanings.  Not doubt, of you borrowed it
from French, you would get a bunch of different implied meanings.  By
what logic would one assume that the American English definition(s)
apply?  Certainly not because of the enormous contribution of Americans
to the field.

The words that should be fu'ivla are those words that have a SINGLE
definition in some source language, but where that single definition, if
encoded into Lojban (especially if one tries to play the lujvo place
analysis game) would be so unwieldy in length that even a rare frequency
of usage demands a shorter word.

A secondary principle supporting this is that all Lojban words, even
fu'ivla, are supposed to have a single definition at least at the place
structure level.  If you can come up with a place structure that covers
all the definitions that Stephen cites, then probably you can come up
with a generalized lujvo.

I believe that EACH of the definitions given in an English dictionary
for most any word shouuld be translated into its own lujvo (or fu'ivla
if appropriate), unless you can come up with a generic term that
encompasses multiple definitions cleanly.  Ultimately, Lojban SHOULD
have more words than English does; it is designed with that "goal" (or
at least "expectation") in mind, and the ideal of singular definitions
for each word, whether such is sustainable, requires it.

Now if you are translating the word "philsophy" from an English text,
you have some difficulty - you have to decide which of the dictionary
definitions (or possibly some other definition that isn't in the
dictionary) is the one intended by the original author being translated.
Choosing that definition, and thus the correct word, is indeed an art.

This difficulty is why translation, especially of "deep" texts with lots
of such polysemantic words, is something that beginning Lojbanists (or
translators into any language) find is NOT a very good tool for learning
Lojban.  Instead of learning Lojban, you get into arguments as to what
the English words mean (as has happened in the list the last few days,
with "philosophy", "syllogism", and "suicide" and perhaps other words as
well).  Which is fine, if that is your intent.

My answer to Stephen's question:
>If you firmly believe that the concept "philosophy" can be translated
>into lojban lujvo, which do you prefer?

is thus "Which concept (singular)?"  If Stephen cannot say what single
concept he has in mind, then the word probably HAS no single translation
into Lojban, either as fu'ivla or lujvo.

Scott Lewis replied to Stephen with:
>I heartily agree.  Reading this discussion reminds me of the old story
>about the blind men describing an elephant.  Just as the blind men can't
>describe the totality of the elephant by descibing one part they can
>touch, a single lujvo would be woefully inadequate for naming something
>as complex and multi-dimensional as Philosophy.

In my opinion, each of the blind men should coin their own lujvo, and
not make the assumption that the elephant is necessarily a singular
thing.  If they eventually agree that they ARE describing the same
thing, then they will perforce be able to agree on a singular
definition.  It is only to the omniscient external observer that sees
the "big picture" clearly that the blind men seem like fools groping in
the dark.

In the case of philsophy, and other such nebulous words, I daresay that
the American dictionary constitutes no such omniscience as to what the
various people who use the term "philosophy" are really describing.  It
merely says that the word is being used as a shorthand by many different
blind men to describe their own animals, and makes NO claim that all of
these animals are really the same elephant.

Scott continues:
>On the other hand, an
>effective way to employ lujvo might be to discuss particular aspects of
>a broader topic.  This could be very handy for getting rid of ambiguity.

And this is what should be done.  Forget trying to come up with an
all-encompassing lujvo or fu'ivla, until you can find the omniscience
that can see the big picture clearly.  Then that person will probably
have to coin a new word, based on NO language, because it will turn out
that no language comes close to the "true" understanding of philosophy.

Stephen later responds to Lee with:
>>Philosophy often sounds like nonsense--and often is--because that's
>>its very purpose; to explore the limits of every idea from every
>>point of view and see where they break.  What's left standing gets
>>spun off into a useful science.  The broken remains are left for
>>studying in philosophy class, as well as the methods by which we
>>broke them, and by which to expand further.  Something like a post
>>mortem examination; we're studying failures, but learning how to
>>do better.
>
>I essentially agree with this.

Based on this, I think your concept is something like. sidbylanli or
sidbylanlyciste, though you might need a mulno or traji in there
somewhere.  Such a lujvo actually conveys MUCH more information than
does a fu'ivla for such a hodgepodge English word.  Using the fu'ivla
BEGS THE QUESTION as to what the heck you mean by the word.  Using a
lujvo that is confined to the commonalty that you apparently share
regarding the meaning you INTEND to signify conveys that shared concept
to a third party.

I think Stephen eventually came to the same conclusion based on:
>This approach makes a lot more sense.
>
>The English *word* "philosophy" is so overloaded with meanings that a
>fu'ivla is best for translation of the word.
>
>The various *concepts* which "philosophy" includes can reasonably be
>translated into individual lujvo.  (There are also specific English
>synonyms for many of these concepts.)

At which point I say, "why bother making the fu'ivla?".  What it sounds
like Stephen is saying is this:  the English word in English text is
untranslatable because we don't know to which specific submeaning a
given use of "philosophy" in English refers.  But if you are that
constrained in your discussion, why are you bothering to translate at
all?  Just use the English word in la'o delimited quotes (which we call
type I fu'ivla), and save more lojbanized fu'ivla forms for those words
where one could in theory pin things down to a specific place structure.

Now going back to Mark's original quote, which is where the question
perhaps started:
> The branch of philosophy
> known as logic has made much of this syllogism
> as an example of perfect reasoning; what is
> more significant is the prodigious amount of
> time and energy which philosophy as a whole
> has spent on inquiring into its true and
> complete meaning.

One gathers that several of the English definitions are ruled out by
these two usages (even assuming that one wants to translate both
instances of "philosophy" with the same Lojban word, which should not
necessarily be a given.

We observe that philosophy has "branches" which include logic.

This implies the "system" definition and thus sidbylanlyciste

We observe that philosophy "as a whole" expends time and energy.  I am
not sure that "systems" do so, This definition is more likely referring
to the mass (loi) of philosophical activity (sidbylanli).  This is
consistent with the additional info that this philsophy expends these
things on "inquiring into its true and complete meaning".  The only
possible change I might make, based on the latter, would be to
sidbysmunylanli.

Now if the translator (Mark) feels it more important to have the two
words bear more commonalty of form because the writer was talking about
one single view of philosophy in English and this fact becomes confused
in using two different words, then I would either put "ciste" on the end
of whatever I came up the second word AS A TANRU (e.g. sidbysmunylanli
ciste), or I would use an abstraction for the second word based on the
first translation (loi zu'o sidbylanlyciste), which works because
activities DO imply the expenditure of time, and perhaps of energy as
well.

But Mark goes on to say:
>The meaning of the word "philosophy" certainly does vary from culture to
>culture, from person to person, from adolescence to adulthood & so
>forth.  Is that a good reason to translate the word by using a fu'ivla
>rather than a lujvo?  If so, then the current jvoste is full of lujvo
>that ought to be replaced by fu'ivla.  Such words as {zgikalsa},
>{grusko}, {saurgu'e}, {ruxycrida}, {farja'o} & {bacycu'e} all vary in
>meaning from culture to culture.

They do not.  They have a single meaning in the embryonic LOJBANIC
culture which may or may not have reflection in other cultures.  Lojban
words have no meaning in another culture since they are not part of any
other culture.  Now it is likely that many of these words were coined by
Lojbanists trying to translate some word from another language.  But
just because "ruxycrida" was used to translate X from some language,
does not mean that "ruxycrida" means X and only X in all its source
language glory.  No doubt, there could be some referents that a
Lojbanist would describe as "ruxycrida" which the source language would
not use X for, or some usages of X for which "ruxycrida" would not
apply.  The only thing that matters is the right word for THIS
translation.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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