Clarity Contra Simplicity

In the previous piece I said that “our power with language reflects our mental clarity and organization.” This thesis was given a general expression there, and it brought up the usual sort of questions, such as: why does our thinking in general these days seem unclear? and what can we do about it? This is a legitimate reading (and is, of course, the one I used in that case). But what I have in mind here is something more specific, which might get some indirect elaboration here.

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I would like to start with a distinction. There are two terms that are not always used in unique senses, but which I think should be. These two terms are “clarity” and “simplicity.” The standard use of these is one that often conflates the two. If something is simple, it’s most likely clear. And if it’s clear, it’s usually (relatively speaking) simple. This is true for language as it’s true for life. To make a problem clear is, at the very least, to make things simpler than they were before. To make things simpler usually involves making them clear. Likewise, simplifying language makes it clearer, and clarifying one’s expressions and words makes language simpler to understand.

This, I think, represents a mostly standard, if unstated, understanding of these two terms. I think that this understanding is flawed. True, it does not say that the two terms are the exact same, which would be obviously flawed. But that they are conflated at all (from here on out I will be speaking of the realm of language in particular) is a problem. The two terms, it seems to me, are very different, and refer to very different virtues. It’s even questionable whether both are actually virtues.

I

To start with, let us complicate the picture a bit by giving definitions. In everyday communication, there is not a clear definition for either of these words; we just know what they mean. However (and this is my not-yet-proven thesis in action), this understanding is incomplete at best. We supposedly know what we mean (after all, that’s exactly what one would say when asked: “You know what I mean.”). But in that case, what is it that we know? We need to make this clear.

An expression is clear when all of its elements are explicit; that is, when the meanings of all members (words) are explicitly laid out and understood, and when the relationships between the members (grammar, structure) are understood. Not only does each piece make sense, the way the pieces fit into a whole makes sense, and thus the whole makes sense in terms of everything that makes it up.

An expression is simple when it has an economical minimum of members and relationships; that is, when all unnecessary members and relationships are removed, and when those that are left have a minimum of additional meanings, connections, and so on; like architecture, a sentence is simple when there’s nothing more than what is needed.

What interests me is the fact that these two are not only different. They can be, and, I think, usually are opposed, at least in the realm of language. And if my previous piece is right, then this opposition in language is connected to an opposition in the human understanding.

II

One of my old professors always said that the philosopher strives, above all, for clarity. I have a professor now who says much the same. Indeed, both enforce it to the utmost; if a particular word hasn’t been made absolutely clear in terms of its meaning and purpose, then they will let you know. Despite this, philosophy has a reputation as being rather difficult, and not just the philosophers of centuries long past; it’s a simple classroom fact that a philosophical paper is difficult for new students to understand. It takes a long adjustment period to learn to “speak the language.” This is admittedly in part because people aren’t taught much philosophy in high school.

But again, I think there’s something more fundamental at work here. As I said, the philosopher strives at clarity. I think this is a mostly universal goal among philosophers (besides, perhaps, some strange fellows who are unfortunately in parts of philosophical studies close to my own). People like to complain that it’s not clear what philosophers are talking about. But how can this be? Is it because philosophers are bad at their jobs? I don’t think so; rather, I think it’s because philosophers and the non-philosophers who read them mean two different things by “clear,” “difficult,” and other terms. By “clarity,” philosophers mean clarity in the technical sense I gave above. Non-philosophers, on the other hand, actually mean simplicity in the technical sense when they refer to clarity. What people normally mean when they say that a work of philosophy is too difficult or unclear isn’t that it isn’t technically clear; as noted above, they don’t usually have in mind a clear definition of “clear.” Rather, they mean that there’s too much going on; there is a staggering lack of simplicity in philosophical work, and they are not trained for that.

Nor are they trained to expect it. People are trained to write “clearly,” but clarity is usually a somewhat warped version of what Strunk and White meant in Elements of Style: “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.” People expect that language is supposed to be pared down to a minimum, a place where the words used are words of common use and the connections easily made. This is what “clear” means to them: something is clear when I and others can easily understand it, which is when it has, as with the machine, the fewest moving parts. In other words, this is a call for simplicity: stop using all the big -unnecessary- words, and just tell me what you mean.

III

Question: in that case, why don’t philosophers write simply? The answer should not be too surprising, if the previous piece was taken into account. The reason philosophers prefer clarity over simplicity is that, simply put, reality may not be simple. Or at least, reality may not be as simple as we want our language to be. And, if we want our language to actually reflect reality, then we had better not simplify it more than can be justified.

Anyone can say something such as (to take examples from a theme which non-philosophers discuss with some frequency) “There is no God,” “There is no such thing as objective morality,” or, “There are no atheists in foxholes,” and mean something by it. The problem is that they may not actually know for sure what they really mean. What do you mean, there is no God? What is God? A physically manifest being (there have definitely been cultures that have believed this)? Something non-dimensional? (In which case, what dimensions are there and what in the hell does it mean for something to “exist,” but not in any dimension? What does “exist” mean?) Something that exists insofar as it has the power to move people, or to explain the unexplainable? These are all lumped together in most debates, yet they are definitions for completely different beings. The usual answer to a question about what is meant would be . . . what, exactly? A physical being? Not even many theists accept that definition anymore. There is no non-dimensional being? How does one even explain the concept, if the only way we really come into contact with anything is through the dimensions? Come to think of it, how does one come into contact with God? Physically? Through “expressions of his presence/love/might?” Through a voice, or a feeling? What God is speaking in such an experience?

We can ask the similar questions about morality, about reality, about truth: there is usually some meaning that is assumed: morality (to use an instance that Scott brought up recently) is some sort of code of right and wrong. Everyone knows this. What is “right?” What you’re supposed to do. What is obligation, that is, “supposed?” What is reality? Dreams are real, in some sense; which one? Are our supposed experiences while dreaming real? It depends on what “reality” actually means. A whole host of problems emerges when we ask these questions.

The philosopher is the arbiter of clarity, if you will. The first step in any professional philosophical debate is to accurately portray the views of the opposition. It is already assumed that, unless the debate is specifically about the use of language, the meanings of terms either have already been clarified or will be clearly defined when they are used. This is meant to establish a perfectly equal understanding for any issue. Contrast this with normal, bar stool philosopher debate; usually a claim is made, and then opposed. Arguments are given, but they often “go past” each other, which is to say miss what the other means. This happens on all sides, since the speakers usually mean different things, yet either don’t realize it or simply don’t accept the other definition. In non-argumentative situations, what happens is simply that a “definition” (these are scare-quotes) is assumed, one not explicitly, which is to say clearly, grasped. Then there is complaint that the philosopher’s views are “too complicated,” because there are too many technical terms.

Yet the philosopher has a different goal from the layman. The philosophers first goal is, broadly speaking, to make sense of things as they really are, to clearly demarcate “reality” when understood as everything that really is. This means that simplicity is nice, but only to the degree that it does not interfere with clarity, which by definition is a reflection of things as they really are. (Hence I started by creating two explicit definitions for the main terms, because they actually do reflect that meaning, however they may be used in non-explicit senses.) The philosopher must make sense of things as they are; that includes the degree of complexity. And as it turns out, reality is usually seen as far more complex than the typical understanding allows. Ordinary understanding, that understanding which even the philosophers operate under when grocery shopping, takes some givens that have been given to it by common usage and accepts them as being the way things are. There’s nothing malicious or intentionally deceptive about this; it’s simply a reflection of the fact that the examined life is a very inefficient, difficult, and oftentimes very harsh way to live, one that many never reach and virtually none remain in. I have no quarrel with common sense. What I do have a quarrel with is when someone accuses philosophy of being “too complicated,” as though that were an epithet; when someone says “that stuff’s too hard for me,” and then uses that as an excuse to not even attempt engage. For if reality is complicated, and the ordinary drive is a drive towards simplicity, then it would as a consequence be a deceptive drive, intentionally or not (I assume not). Simplicity is not a virtue; at most it’s very pragmatic, and sufficient to allow one a full life, assuming one is not interested in seeing things exactly as they are. But that doesn’t give one the right to accuse the philosopher of any failing, or to reject the seriousness of her task. Philosophy isn’t simple because life isn’t simple; what philosophy must do is show things as they are, however complicated they may be. As it turns out, things are much more complicated than our language allows. And if I was right before, that our control over language is directly connected to our own ability to understand, then philosophers, it seems, have a duty to be complicated, provided that that complexity reflects the matter at hand.