SNOBBERY | FIELD GUIDE

Snooty Phrases I Picked up as a Philosopher

John Wilkes Booth, toilet paper topology, and Hegelian Kegels

Follow my advice, and you’ll be full of shit too. Photo by Nik on Unsplash.

When I was growing up, I read anything I could get my hands on: a stupid amount of books.

My vocabulary was large and unusual (oft mispronounced) for a 12-year-old kid. “Nerd!”

It wasn’t until I began studying philosophy as an undergraduate that I let my freak flag flutter in the public wind. I busted out that highfalutin, down-talking technical jargon that my friends have come to know and love.

In that spirit, I offer some of the best philosopher phrases that I’ve picked up in my career — how and when to use them. Wittgenstein’s beetle!

I’m about to make a non-obvious move and pretend it’s obvious

Any philosopher can argue for a claim. The true philosopher declares it obvious. Trivially. Manifestly. Self-evidently.

Translates to: “this is so obvious I won’t argue for it; also, you’re stupid if you can’t see it.”

Press us and we switch languages. Claro que sí. Bien sûr.

Tout court.

The onus is on you (never me)

Why explain when you could make them? We say cash that out. Best deployed when you have no idea either.

The server reads the specials. “…and a rustic deconstructed cassoulet.”

Cash out ‘deconstructed.’

He explains in detail. I order the steak anyway.

We’ve developed many verbs to make sitting in a chair sound like building a house.

Sound like you’re doing manual labor

Probably owns his home. Photo by Jonathan Bean on Unsplash.

I told my contractor a concept wasn’t load-bearing. He asked which wall.

My butcher gets it. Carving nature at its joints is most of what he does.

We talk like blacksmiths, yet we have not stood up in hours. The only labor we do is hand-waving.

Some days even talking is too much after working the intellectual coal mines.

Trust me, I haven’t checked (or, I’m lazy)

Most of these are Latin.

Mutatis mutandis means “with the appropriate changes.” Ceteris paribus means “all else equal.” Modulo X means “ignore X for now.” Each one means: don’t make me say more.

“Ceteris paribus, I’d love the burger,” I tell the waiter.

She has a philosophy PhD. That’s why she’s a waiter. She knows the move. She waits. I wait. She walks away. Foucault yourself.

For the strongest version, we bracket. Holding fixed the laundry covering every surface, the apartment is clean. Ignoring John Wilkes Booth, the play was excellent.

Refuse to engage — shut ’em down

“Is it raining?”

That’s an empirical question.

“Did you eat my leftovers?” — category mistake.

“It’s not. You ate them.”

You’re conflating eating with consumption.

“What does that even mean?”

That begs the question against my position.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

That’s a pre-Kantian way of thinking.

I dine alone — haven’t had a real conversation in years. I’ve gone full late-period Nietzsche. Nee-shee? Neet-chee? Nee-chuh.

None of this works if you can’t pronounce the names.

Pace, your mother

We have a Latin phrase for every kind of disagreement. Pace Quine. Contra Heidegger. Think less collegiate disagreement, more middle fingers to philosophers, dead or alive.

My colleague’s footnote: “Contra Hegel.” My margin note: “Pace your mother.” His response in the next draft: “Sed contra your father.”

This is how we say I love you.

Yo mama’s family. Photo by Mandell Smock on Unsplash.

Pronouncing the dead mofos

In seminar I said NEET-shee. The professor looked at me like I had spit on the floor. I have not mispronounced a name since.

Wittgenstein: VIT-gen-shtine. Quine rhymes with swine. Goethe sounds like Big Berta.

“I’m doing my Hegel,” I told a friend. He asked why I was doing vaginal exercises.

I give the look now.

Hills to die on

With the right opponent, it all comes out at once:

“Pre-theoretically, in the logical space of all possible orientations — given the topology of the roll — on what grounds would anyone qua adult defend the under orientation? I take it that, in the limit, only over survives.”

Staring me in the eyes, she hangs the new roll, under.

She steeples her fingers. She is preparing her own combo.

I should leave the bathroom.

The embodied snob

We have a phrase for everything. We have several phrases for the same thing. None are necessary. All are mandatory.

Sometimes they get misheard. “His position supervenes upon hers,” I told a friend. He asked who was mounting whom.

You think the phrases are the work. They are not.

Any philosopher can say snobby things. The true philosopher must embody it.

Steeple fingertips across tight lips. Roll shoulders forward to get the classic academic turkey neck. Lean in. Let glasses (mandatory) slip down the nose. As slow and judgy as possible — lift nose like you are doing “smell the fart” acting.

Give it a try.

We have been waiting for you.