"[Today’s jargon] was produced by philosophy and was in Europe known to have been produced by philosophy, so that it paved a road to philosophy. In America its antecedents remain unknown. We took over the results without having had any of the intellectual experiences leading to them. But the ignorance of the origins and the fact that American philosophy departments do not lay claim to them—are in fact just as ignorant of them as is the general public—means that the philosophic content of our language and lives does not direct us to philosophy. This is a real difference between the Continent and us. Here the philosophic language is nothing but jargon."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: 1988), pp. 378-379
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jargon
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Jargon
12 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Jargon →
Related Quotes
"What is or is not the jargon is determined by whether the word is written in an intonation which places it transcende…"
"The jargon makes it seem that ... the pure attention of the expression to the subject matter would be a fall into sin."
"Whoever is versed in the jargon does not have to say what he thinks, does not even have to think it properly. The jar…"
"Words of the jargon sound as if they said something higher than what they mean."
"More often than we are aware, it is the jargon which is the hurdle that a student cannot overcome rather than the mat…"
"Jargon or gobbledygook, or what people who live in Washington or Ottawa call "federal prose," [is] the gabble of abst…"
"Ancient philosophy proposed to mankind an art of living. By contrast, modern philosophy appears above all as the cons…"
"Margaret Mead noted... that scientists at the frontier, where the terminology and imagery are developed, speak mostly…"
"Functional discourse ... serves as a vehicle of coordination and subordination. The unified, functional language is a…"
"Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent."