There are times when we are less interested in what a given thinker said, and more with having them fit in a popular narrative. What actual philosophers said is subtle – usually too subtle for the sort of simplicity that a popular narrative requires. Still, we need popular narratives. So what to do?
What we need is some way to indicate when we are merely using a thinker as a part of a popular historical narrative. Such an account may be what the thinker actually said, it might be a popular impression of what they said (but in fact did not), it might be a plausible but not necessarily correct account of what they said, it might even be nothing but a vicious slander of the thinker’s actual thought. What would be undeniable is that this account has value in explaining a progressive stream of thought, even if it was not the actual historical stream of thought that occurred. It seems to me that the Spanish diminutive (-ito, or -ita in the feminine) hits exactly the right note for this sort of reality.
Since I’m making this up, here are the grammatical rules: the stress of the word must always be on the penultimate syllable, unless the word sounds funnier otherwise, in which case the change in pronunciation requires an accent marker. Latinate endings are to be dropped (so “Scot” not “Scotus” and “Copernik” not “Copernicus”). Two-syllable names are to be shortened to one, thus St. Thomas is “thomito” as in “the rationalism of St. Thomito was the high point of Medieval Scholasticism before the voluntaristic and Nominalistic revolt of the late Middle ages”.
Use as spice.
I mean this all sincerlito.
berenike said,
July 15, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Kopernik. Otherwise you’d have to pronounce it “Tsopernik”.
Brandon Watson said,
July 15, 2012 at 3:04 pm
There does seem to be a need for something like this. To understand seventeenth century French philosophy, you need to understand Augustine, who is the dominant philosophical inference everywhere. But at the same time, it’s Augustine-as-interpreted-through-various-filters-and-simplified, not Augustine, as such, and while they overlap considerably, there are important divergences. At that point it is perhaps not all that difficult to keep track, but as philosophical thought becomes more historicized in the nineteenth century, this becomes increasingly a problem, as philosophical figures regularly get treated as stylized representatives of particular positions — sometimes fairly, sometimes not. These stylized histories play an important role in lots of different kinds of arguments, as you say, so there does need to be some way to handle them.
Peace be with you. said,
July 15, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Chastiko’s Way
James Chastek said,
July 15, 2012 at 10:28 pm
mmmm… tekitos…
PatrickH said,
July 16, 2012 at 8:53 am
Heraclitito sounds too weird, so… “As Heraclito said, you cannot step into the same river twice”. Aristotelito? Aristotito? Or just Aristito? I like the last one best. And wouldn’t your name be shortened according to the two syllable rule to Chast-, so making “Chastito”?