Gibberophobia
philosophy, fear, and the plain style
pp. 179-193
in: David Rudrum (ed), Literature and philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 2006Abstract
We philosophers are not, on the whole, particularly fussy when it comes to questions of style. We like to think that philosophy is about cutting through linguistic surfaces and getting straight to the point, so we do not want stylistic foibles to detain us. But that does not mean we do not care about style; quite the contrary, it implies that we have to be constantly vigilant, on our guard against stylistic excess, making endless war on the rampant flowers of rhetoric that threaten to invade the fields of truth and suffocate their mighty harvest.