#736 Words, Concepts, Definitions ... Limits of Language

     When we directly engage with reality, there is wonder, gratitude, silence, stillness, timelessness, peace, and joy. We all know & love this as an aspect of consciousness, yet don't experience it nearly often enough. And when we do experience it, we may inadvertently start talking to ourselves or to others to describe it, to "capture it" in words - which immediately ends the transcendent experience. Words can indeed get in the way!
     Though we crank out far too many words (rather than listening attentively), we do sometimes need to say something. Here's an interesting discussion about the great difficulty of capturing complex, important concepts (such as wisdom) using words, word-based concepts & definitions:

     "Philosophers have debated definitional issues for centuries, and even today lament that, in the words of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 'The problems of definition are constantly recurring ... no problems of knowledge are less settled than those of definition ...' In fact the French philosopher Jacques Derrida argued that 'nearly every term is an aporia' (an irreducible puzzle) that 'admits of no settled solution or clear resolution.'
     Eastern philosophies agree. One of the central themes of Buddhist Madhyamika philosophy is that all phenomena are shunyata: a difficult term to translate, but implying that all phenomena are inherently transconceptual. Likewise Radhakrishnan, one of India’s greatest philosophers and also its second president, pointed to 'the inadequacy of all intellectual categories ...” Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism, put it poetically:

          Existence is beyond the power of words to define:
          Terms may be used but none of them are absolute.

     So defining wisdom, or anything else for that matter, turns out to be a deep linguistic challenge. We cannot expect absolute certainty or agreement from our terms nor from our definitions. However, we can try to use them carefully and skillfully, remembering that, as the philosopher Huston Smith put it, 'all human thought proceeds from words. As long as words are askew, thought cannot be straight.' "
       Roger Walsh. "What is Wisdom? Cross-cultural and Cross-disciplinary Synthesis." Review of General Psychology 19(3); 278-293: 2015.

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