An examination of "Philosophy Bro"

Philosophy Bro.


A haven for those seeking easy to read summaries of various academic philosophic works. But they're more than just summaries. Nothing on the site is written in "academic language". Everything is written in "bro speak".


The author's about me section states " Maybe you've got a big paper coming up, and you haven't done the reading. Maybe there's this guy you've heard about, but you don't have the time to wade through the text yourself. Whatever, bro, I don't judge." 


That's  just the thing: it's all written in a colloquial, college-student tongue, precisely the audience it generally seems to be aimed at. The result? It feels something like reading comedy blogging (such as on collegehumor or cracked) Except this time instead of just giggles the reader is actually learning in a slightly more traditional sense of the word.


The usage of vulgarities is somewhat controversial. To be true to "bro speak" the author periodically includes several four-letter words. Now these interjections serve no (direct) purpose to the learning of philosophy, and appear to exist mainly for the preservation of character. If very sparsely used, those interjection can create the illusion of having a personal and very informal chat with the author, but if overdone shows the he/she might be trying too hard to seem "bro". 

A Multilingual Internet...

From the people that brought you captcha and recaptcha, Duolingo.com is the brainchild of Luis von Ahn. The basic idea is this: you learn a language (for free, a full $500 less than Rosetta Stone) by a type of immersion, while simultaneously translating the internet.

Isn't the internet already translated? I mean, you can make a website in any language you want! And if it's not, Google Translate will do it for you! Well the thing is, most successful websites are available primarily in English, thus are accessible mainly to English speakers. To use the example of Wikipedia. The English version of the site has almost 4 million articles. The Spanish version? Under a million. As far as translating programs go, often times, as I'm sure many of you have noticed, are unreliable methods of accurately translating information.

Luis von Ahn's dream is to, in teaching people new languages, translate the rest of the internet into every major language on the planet. Users are given sentences of increasing complexity in the language they wish to learn to translate, and answers can be compared to answers from other users and rated. After extended use the user begins to learn how the language works, and is busy at work translating snippets of web pages.

The internet's potential for massive collaboration could potentially be revolutionary in the greater world's understanding of language. Since new websites and blogs are being CONSTANTLY updated, with a plethora of untranslated text being formed every minutes, learners will have no shortage of things to translate, thus material to practice with. As a result, it is possible that the world will become more worldly. Demographic chunks that otherwise would never have seriously bothered understanding another language (particularly in America) now have access to that in a both intrinsically and extrinsically productive manner. With more and more people becoming accustomed to the annuls of different languages, the world becomes a more interconnected and inter-linguistic communication becomes more seamless.

Every language functions a different way, with certain things that simply cannot be translated while maintaining its original beauty. It is in attempting to translate these phrases, or words, the ones who reference a literary canon apart from our own, that we become exposed to the self-contained beauty of other languages. And even if sometimes we cannot understand it, it would be great step forward to at least appreciate it.

Here is Luis von Ahn's TED talk on the subject.

Duolingo is currently in beta testing, and should hopefully start-up soon.

Pakistan's SMS Censorship

Last week the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) issued a draft list* of nearly 17,000 English and Urdu words that should be banned on a religious basis.

The restrictions themselves are understandable, but the words chosen seem strange, some of the more profound (and funny) ones compiled by the Huffington Post.

It's puzzling, that there exist 51 different variations of blocked words that include the prefix "ass", but only 1 for "arse". Other words, such as "deposit" seem like they shouldn't belong on that list.

It is furthermore intriguing that "Jesus Christ" appears on the list, considering he is accepted in Islam as a prophet.

The ban has not taken place, and due to the worldwide outcry over the policy may be fully rescinded. Indeed the measure can be labelled as ridiculous, in part because somebody had had to think of the words to list in the first place. Discussion on Twitter still continues under the subjects #PTAban and #PTAbannedlist.

Even if the PTA was fully successful in banning a list of "obscene" words, it wouldn't take long for people to invent new words, and replace old ones to become just as obscene. Colloquial language is remarkably flexible. Every new generation seems to generate a new set of slang terms.

*This is a list that has been circulated around the internet, but has not been deemed "Official"

Metaphors, Tidal Waves, and How We Think

Today, we're going to talk about embodied cognition.

This is a contemporary theory that claims that our minds are not a separate entity from our bodies, rather are extremely interconnected with each other.

As Samuel McNerney writes, "What exactly does this mean? It means that our cognition isn't confined to our cortices. That is, our cognition is influenced, perhaps determined by, our experiences in the physical world."

Furthermore, this means that our metaphors are rooted in physical experiences. I'm not just referring to metaphors you might read in literature either, where you might expect that sort of thing. Think of all the metaphors you use in daily speech without even noticing. Like when you are sad/depressed, you're "down in the dumps", "feeling down", "at a low point", "feel like you hit rock bottom". Sad = Down. Conversely, happiness is generally interpreted as up, and thousands of similar metaphors permeate our daily lives. Here's the catch: the metaphors aren't random! In fact, our associations with generally abstract ideas can be rooted in physiological responses. Anger is often coupled with heat (think "he blew up", or "he's fuming") because when we are angry our skin temperature rises, along with a quickening of the heartbeat.

One notable experiment had subjects hold a cup of warm or cold liquid before an interaction with a stranger. When asked if they would potentially hire the stranger for a permanent position, those holding the warm water were much more likely to grant the job than those who held a cold beverage.

Otto Santa Ana writes about this in his essay "Immigration as Dangerous Waters: The Power of Metaphor". His claim is that immigration as an idea is often associated with ideas of dangerous waters, such as "a sea of brown faces", "foreigners who have flooded into the country", "relentless flow of immigrants", or "awash under a brown tide".

The implications are obvious, equating immigrants with something dangerous will cause us to fear them. But the real question is, why do we make that association in the first place? Sure the media helps propagate the metaphor, but in accepting it, we allow the media to continue using it. What came first, the chicken or the egg?

In any case, it is important to remember that subliminal messaging (or "priming") has scientific backing. Word choice and connotations can have real physical effects on our perception because our bodies take abstract ideas literally, and our mind seems to be a product of our bodies (after all, if you have no body, you can no longer think. But if you can't reason, you can still be technically be proclaimed living, or just dumb).

Post-Mortem Words

Sarah Murray writes in her article, "Death Becomes Us" about different ways that people attempt to honor the dead. More specifically she speaks of traditions around the world in which the dead body is treated as sacred, but the underlying point is that this sentiment isn't even tied to religion, as in the case of her father. Even an atheist man felt the need for his ashes to be spread in a meaningful manner. After all, by all rational logic, all the ashes are nothing more than "crushed pieces of calcium phosphate".

Murray claims that in preserving part of the dead person in question, we allow ourselves to have a continuing conversation with them. There is more to this however, than keeping ashes in an urn, having a skull or finger behind glass, or even an ordinary tombstone. The way we talk with and about the dead becomes significant.

No longer a living entity, the dead are not subject to change. They are no longer fluid beings capable of fixing past mistakes, accomplishing goals, or trying out a new hairstyle. We keep them alive within our memories, and as such must choose, from a basis of available information, the qualities that most closely match how we want the person in question encapsulated. A dead relative well liked may be remembered by their good qualities, minor sins no longer relevant and utterly forgotten. To those who were hurt by the dead relative's actions however, those sins may be very significant, and shape the static image of their now-dead enemy.

This is particularly noticeable among people who were martyred. Think of the rhetoric employed when the name Jesus Christ is invoked. Or the words used when we speak about Ghandi. Or the things you'll hear when you ask about Ayatollah Khomeini (depending on who you ask).

We keep relics of the dead for the purpose of augmenting and maintaining our memories, they serve as reminders of the people who once lived. It is the way we speak about them that truly matters, for it is in how we speak about them that they are forever preserved.

A Tribute to Our Good Friend Steve

There's been a lot of hubbub lately about the death of Apple CEO and celebrity Steve Jobs. There's been just as much hubbub as his incredibly inspirational 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford.

As a tribute to our techie hero, who brought us wonderful and revolutionary advancements in personal electronics, here is an analysis on just what makes his speech so great. After all, one of his greatest traits was his unparalleled charisma.

Transript and Video of the Full Speech

1. Compartmentalization:

There are three stories he tells. Separate stories, but they unify into one large, overreaching one. The first one talks about meager beginnings and the environment he had before his rise to fame, and adventure and glory. The second, he speaks of difficulties, the plot thickens, but there is hope! And finally, denouement. Jobs speaks of death, and of closure. The three stories on there own serve basis as well, they are personal and yet instructive. The way Mr. Jobs speaks sounds like a conversation more than it sounds like a fancy-shmancy lecture, and we respond to that.

2. Repetition:

Notice how certain things he repeats? He reminds us, "Don't settle". Twice. He talks about connecting the dots in both the first and the third story. These repetitions are blatantly obvious, nor often enough to become annoying, but still present. It is that mere slight presence of repetition that draws our attention just enough for us to remember those bits.

3. Variation

There is variation in the length and format of all of his sentences. This allows for play with rhythm and sound of words, which keeps listeners interested. Can you imagine how unforgivingly boring a speech would be if every sentence was exactly the same length and structure? They say music is a language, but language also can be quite musical.

How the New York Times Shifted Its Stance

This graphic was originally posted by a blogger Aluation. Here are two version of the same article on the recent arrests at Occupy Wallstreet in New York. The first one subtly portrays New York police as the aggressors, whereas an edit twenty minutes later shifts that accusation to the demonstrators. It is important to note that the author was changed from Colin Moynhan to Al Baker and Colin Moynhan in the second version. Al Baker, coincidentally, is the NYPD's bureau.

The difference in the two versions seems to lie mainly in intent. The sequence of events is the same in both versions: protesters go onto bridge, police arrest protesters. In the first version however, police "allow" protesters onto the bridge. Then they arrest dozens. In the second version, police arrested hundreds, after protesters "marched onto the bridge" in "a tense showdown".

The language in the second version implies that protesters breached some sort of rule, marching onto the bridge, and that there was a tense showdown between two forces. Of course the implication is since there are two forces, one must be good, and the other evil, and the police must be the good ones since the protesters were the ones to break the rule. The police were successful at the end of the day, as they arrested "hundreds" which is significantly more than the previous "dozens".

The first version had the two forces reversed, with the police being portrayed as the bad guys for their hypocrisy. The NYPD had "allowed" protesters to go onto the bridge, followed by arrests. Here the police are obviously the bad guys for betraying the protesters, for leading them into a trap.

Reasons for the change? Considering Al Baker's involvement, it would probably be fair to guess to maintain the NYPD as a healthy and just peace keeping force. What actually happened? That's unclear. Even the numbers are unclear; dozens and hundreds are very different estimates. Sure technically if you have more dozens than you have hundreds you might get the same approximation, but that's not the implication of the text.

Hello, Internet!

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Roman. I'm not going to pretend to have more authority than I can claim, because frankly, I'm just a senior in high school. I'm a regular guy just interested in linguistics.

Linguistics. That's what this blog is all about. I'll be discussing rhetoric and its multiple facets and manifestations. We use English every day, for everything. When we buy groceries. When we read the news. Business people do business in English. Our politicians communicate to us in, you guessed it, English.

It would be intuitive then to assume that communication is an extremely important function in daily life. If you assumed that, good, because it is.

By the way, you might be wondering why a blog about language is called language-ology. Duh, that's not a word. Ever heard of linguistics? I have. BUT I'm not a grammar-nazi. In fact, I'm here to talk about word choice as well, which sometimes can mean "bending" grammar rules. Language-ology, for example, helps emphasize the relatively informal nature of this blog.

Toodledoo,

Roman