interesting blog

Some excerpts from The Philosophical Lexicon courtesy of Ali Rizvi in Melbourne:

chomsky, adj. Said of a theory that draws extravagant metaphysical implications from scientifically established facts. "Essentially, Hume's criticism of the Argument from Design is that it leads in all its forms to blatantly chomsky conclusions." "The conclusions drawn from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle are not only on average chomskier than those drawn from Godel's theorem; most of them are downright merleau-ponty."

dreyfus, n. (from "dry" & "fuss") An arid ad hominem controversy. "What began as an interesting debate soon degenerated into a dreyfus."

foucault, n. A howler, an insane mistake. "I'm afraid I've committed an egregious foucault."

habermass, (from the Middle High German halber Marx; cf. ganzer Marx) n. A religious ceremony designed to engender an illusion of understanding through chants describing socio-economic conditions. Hence also, habermass, v. "He habermassed Einstein; he attempted to deduce the special theory of relativity from the social structure of the Zurich patent office." "Nothing but a gadam habermass" - H. S. Truman.

heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger."

quine, v. (1) To deny resolutely the existence of importance of something real or significant. "Some philosophers have quined classes, and some have even quined physical objects." Occasionally used intr., e.g., "You think I quine, sir. I assure you I do not!" (2) n. The total aggregate sensory surface of the world; hence quinitis, irritation of the quine.

rort, n. m. (1) an incorrigible report; hence, rorty, adj. incorrigible. n. (2) Fashionable but confused discourse. "Don't talk rort."

the whole shbang