12 / CHRONICLESnON CLARITY by Josef PiepernThe following is the text of Dr. Pieper’s address atnthe 1987 Ingersoll Prizes Awards Banquet.nIt seems to be rather easy to translate “Scholarly Letters”nadequately into German. Every year the German Academynfor Language and Poetry awards a prize forn”wissenschaftliche prosa,” and what this phrase means isnprecisely identical with the meaning of “Scholarly Letters.”nNevertheless, there is, in this characteristically differentnwording, a hidden problem. One becomes aware of it oncenone tries to retranslate the German phrase back intonEnglish. Then it might become almost impossible tonrecognize the “Scholarly Letters” at all: “scientific prose” isnobviously quite a different thing! It is, however, exactly thisndifference which I have in mind to scrutinize a bit, in ordernto make clear what I feel is the distinguishing mark, thendifferentia specified of a philosophical language, in contradistinctionnto the language of science. True, both arenlanguages, of course. But I would dare to name thenlanguage of science “terminology” — consisting of terms—nwhereas the philosopher is speaking a real language, consistingnnot of terms but of words. And allow me, please, tonmake a few remarks on the difference between terminologynand language.nFor decades, logical positivism has been demanding thatnphilosophers use an exact artificial terminology, like thenphysicists, instead of the supposedly inexact, naturallyngrown language. It is indeed an advantage of terminology tonbe more precise than language. But there exists a precisenessnthat philosophy is unable to bring about, that philosophyncannot even wish to achieve. “Precise” literally meansn”cut ofF’ and “cut out” — out of the whole of a specialnevent or of a piece of reality. But it is this very whole innwhich philosophy is explicitly interested. When physiciansnspeak to each other of “exitus,” they mean the precisenphysiological fact that a patient’s life is ending. “Exitus” is anterm which leaves out everything that is happening innaddition to the physiological event whenever a man dies.nThe “word” of the living natural historical language whichncorresponds to the term “exitus” is “death.” And this wordnmeans and names the whole, including the incomprehensible,nof what happens in the dying of a human being. Ofncourse, the language of philosophy also has to be clear, andnthe word “death” is absolutely clear but is not at all precise.nMoreover, it is by far richer; it grasps much more realitynthan even the most precise term can ever do.nT.S. Eliot ironically compares a special well-known kindnof modern art with a special kind of philosophy which isneager to imitate the natural sciences; he says the one seemsnto provide a method of producing works of art withoutnimagination, and the other seems to provide a method ofnphilosophizing without insight and wisdom. The sharpestndictum, however, comes from an unexpected side. It isnAlfred North Whitehead, the coauthor of the PrincipianMathematica in his early years, but later a real philosophernJosef Pieper received The Richard M. Weaver Award fornScholarly Letters on November 5, 1987.nnnin the spirit of the great Western tradition — it is he, whonfinished his public farewell lecture on Immortality (it was,nby the way, the Ingersoll Lecture at Harvard University)—nhe finished it with the provocative sentence: “Exactness is anfake.”nThe difficulty of understanding a book can have remarkablyndifferent reasons. I have been told that perhaps only 20npeople in the world are capable of understanding thenwritings of Albert Einstein on the theory of relativity. Here,nthe difficulty obviously lies in the extreme complicatednessnof the subject matter. And so there may be many scientificnbooks which only experts are able to understand. One aouldnpossibly also say that the difficulty has to do with the lack ofnknowledge of the specific terminology. But this terminology,nnormally based on a conventional agreement among thenscientists, can and has to be acquired by learning. Andntherefore the real obstacle to understanding is not thenterminological language itself. Also in philosophy, thoughnonly in its “outer court,” a special kind of scientificnterminology can have its legitimate place. And this terminologyntoo can be acquired by learning; one can and perhapsnhas to become an expert — again so the language would nonlonger be an obstacle to understanding. But now we arenapproaching the border line of a region wherein languagenitself is the main, if not the only, obstacle to understanding.nIn his own house, beyond the “outer court” (of, let us say,nformal logic or linguistic analysis) the philosopher is dealingnwith and speaking of matters which by their very nature donnot concern experts, but the human being as such, whichnmeans everybody. Of course, I do not maintain thatneverybody would or should be able to grasp, quickly andneasily, what philosophers can. On the contrary, there maynexist enormous diflBculties of understanding, which possiblyncannot be overcome by an effort of conceptual thinking butnrather only by silent meditation. It remains true, however,nthat in a genuine philosophical utterance one thing isnimportant (and perhaps very demanding): namely, to makenperceivable the clarifying and illuminating power of thennaturally developed language in such a way that the objectnof man’s search for wisdom, concerning not only expertsnbut everybody, becomes and remains clear. Therefore, thenlanguage of philosophy, of the loving search for wisdom, hasnto be a plain language which must not be an obstacle butnthe vehicle to understanding. It is here, however, in the veryncenter of the philosophical field, where we are facing thenphenomenon of a linguistic idiom that is neither terminologynnor language but a frightening kind of jargon, annarbitrarily constructed mode of speaking that makes understandingnand communication impossible. Strangely enough,nthe obstacle is nothing but the language itself!nNone of my great heroes in philosophy speaks jargon, notneven a terminology. All of them — Lao-tse, Plato, Aristotle,nAugustine, Thomas Aquinas — express whatever they havento say in a plain language. This is, by the way, why they arenmuch more readable than their commentators.nTwo of those great philosophers — this shall be mynconcluding remark—Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, bothnextremely sober and realistic minds, surprisingly speak of ann