> The jargon of science is needed to restrict the meaning of common words to
> a specific material (and sometimes measurable) context : force, time,
> acceleration, mass, evolution, light...and their relationships: square
> root, sum, derivative, ecosystem, organism.... In the domain of science man
> invents names for things, sets, and relationships he did not make himself.
>
> But the jargon of the humanities is all for things created by social,
> historical man, so it seems a false parallelism.
>
> I'm not sure about this, but it's my first reaction. And I'm not exactly
> sure why we need jargon in the humanities; I am suspicious of looking for
> transhistorical universals. I mean, in the humanities we question things
> that claim to be transhistorical universals or we examine them closely. But
> do we really need a jargon for doing so? I'm not sure.
>
> Joanna
>
>
> I gotta admit this argument floors me. Are there straightforward,
everyday terms that can - with any discursive efficiency - cover the
meaning of modernism, orientalism, materialism, novel, gender, fugue,
Sophist, dialectic, or any of the types of poetry that demand highly
specified formal elements?