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[tamiam]

Over on another thread someone alluded to Kant's "categorical imperative" as a justification for doing (not doing) something. When asked to explain exactly what a categorical imperative was, the posted said that it means (and I am being very loose here - apologies to all philosophers if I over-simplify):

"imagine if everyone did that."

And I'm reading that, thinking, hey, my parents said that to me and they never even heard of Kant.

In economics, we have a concept called "elasticity"; which gives first semester economics students no end of grief, but which the rest of the world understands as "price sensitivity".

In your disciplines, do you have overly-intellectualized jargon for common sense concepts? Let's share.

(As you can see, I'm trying to get enough threads going here to kick the abortion debate below off my screen).

[Yep]

"imagine if everyone did that."

Yeah, that's essentially it.  I should take an action only if it would be good to have a universal law which said that everyone MUST take that action.  Eg, I should feed the hungry because it would be good to have a law that said that we MUST feed the hungry.  I should not steal my neighbor's newspaper because it would not be good to have a law that says that everyone must steal newspapers.

Elasticity--is that something along the lines of this?  The demand for gasoline is rather inelastic because people will pay pretty much whatever it costs because they just have to have it.  But at some point, even that demand has a limit.  People won't pay $100 per gallon no matter how much they need it.

Something like that?

[Night Writer]

Sociology is full of such jargon.  I particularly like the term "serial monogamy" (the practice of being married more than twice) because it seems like an oxymoron and we usually have some interesting class discussion over this.  

I like to word this term into a test question that reads something like:  "Fred has been married and divorced 3 times and has recently remarried for a 4th time. This is an example of  (fill in the blank). "   Write-in answers often include choices like "masochism", "torture" and "insanity".

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[Ann O'Nymous]

Thanks for making me laugh out loud!

[Chevy Prefect]

In teaching literature, I occasionally must refer to philosophical concepts. When I mention Kant, I like to explain to students that Kant said you should never do anything that that you wouldn't want everyone else to do.

Then I like to add, "Some day scholars of philosophy will discover that Kant didn't come up with that idea himself. I'm positive that Kant got that idea from his mother."

[Zarkov]

I sometimes run into jargon problems from accounting majors who are taking finance or economics.  Case in point, in accounting, the terms cost and expense mean different things.  In economics, and often in finance, we use the term cost to mean what an accountant would call expense.

I also run into problems with common words, like price and value.  I take price to mean market data, and value to mean the outcome of some analysis or consideration of what something is worth.  Thus if my analysis says that Apple stock's value is 70 dollars, and today's price is 50 dollars, then I'd buy it. But then the text goes and calls the price "market value," destroying the disinction I make in my lecture.

[Kant Freak]

Here's Kant's categorical imperative (from his *Critique of Practical Reason*):

"Act such that the maxim of your will could always hold simultaneously as a principle of universal legislation."

There are several different English translations of this one sentence. But, this is the one I like. Sorry, no time to explain what it means. Maybe later.

[Fiona]

I think "standpoint theory" in sociology is the same thing as "choosing a paradigm" or "post-modernism."

All of them state that what you see depends on who you are and what you're looking for.

Corrections and additions welcome.

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[Art Historian]

I'm sure I can think of something, but honestly?  I'm still trying to get over the notion that Kant's categorical imperative is considered "jargon."  How can a major (not to mention well-known) philosophical principle be classified as technical language?

[melba]

That whole categorical imperative thing always bothered me. Because you can take any wholesome and wonderful behavior and make it into a disaster if everyone did it. For instance, say I decide to devote my entire life to growing organic tomatoes for myself and for other people to eat.* Sounds like a great vocation? But what if everyone in the world decided they wanted to dedicate themselves to growing tomatoes 24/7? Could we survive on tomatoes alone? We would never survive without other types of food, not to mention water, clothing, shelter, health care... Really any occupation, except homestead style farming, would be impossible under this type of thought process.

Or is it ok to sit here in my chair? What would happen if everyone sat in this particular chair? The chair would be destroyed long before the entire population had their turn to sit down, therefore impossible, therefore a bad thing. Of course, maybe sitting in "my" chair is too specific, we should instead judge sitting in "a" chair. But that's where the whole imperative falls apart--because right/wrong all ends up depending on how specifically you define the act.

[otoh]

The 'maxim' of your will is to be made universal, not every will or whim.  S

o I guess your maxim could be the principle of organic gardening. Not growing one particular fruit (or veg?).

That's perhaps why it is no good to reduce something as sophisticated as Kantian ethics to mother's lore.

[melba]

But even organic gardening would be deadly if that's all everyone did all day. I guess if anyone would like to de-simplify this piece of Kantian ethics, I'd be all ears.

[Zarkov]

Art Historian wrote:

> I'm sure I can think of something, but honestly?  I'm still
> trying to get over the notion that Kant's categorical
> imperative is considered "jargon."  How can a major (not to
> mention well-known) philosophical principle be classified as
> technical language?

Wild guess, most undergrads don't take a philosophy course, or if they do, it is either a broad history of philosophy course or an ethics course specific to their field (eg, business ethics).  Thus, catagorical imperitive is "jargon."

[Art Historian]

> Wild guess, most undergrads don't take a philosophy course, or

Wait...so anything/any language an undergraduate hasn't been exposed to is "jargon"?  There are tons of things in my field that undergraduates haven't heard of before.  For instance, they might not know about Dadaism or Minimalism, but neither of those terms would be considered "jargon" in my field.  Field-specific jargon would be language derived from theoretical texts, say Norman Bryson's work on semiotics, or possibly even Panofsky's writing about iconography.

I don't know, I just think that Kant's categorical imperative isn't exactly an obscure reference within the discipline philosophy, and I would never have considered it "jargon."

[history grrrl]

I don't understand what any of you are talking about (clear evidence that I know zilch about philosophy -- the economics stuff I get, more or less). Ah, jargon.

My first semester in grad school, I made a list of history jargon terms and sent it to a friend to show him what I was "learning." It included words like presentist, historicize, problematize, and neopositivist. I think there were about 25 words on the list. I still don't know what some of them mean, and I don't think I've ever used any of them except to make fun of them.

My friend responded by sending me a great piece about academic jargon from C. Wright Mills' _The Sociological Imagination_; I think it's the chapter called "Grand Theory."

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