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On communicating one's ideas clearly

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There are many times when one has a perspective, and yet it seems practically impossible to get another person to see what you're trying to tell them.

Sometimes though, when you're writing, you're not talking to anyone particular, you're just trying to express a view you have in words, and that alone can be difficult not to mention the fact that in writing one must be clear if others are to understand what you're trying to say - at least in philosophy it tends to be that way.

I just wanted to ask what everyone here does, what methods and tips they might have that have been useful to them in how they communicate their insights and understandings so as to get them across accurately to someone else. From experience have you recognized any patterns of when things are communicated successfully?

@Holiday20310401,

hi holiday! i havent seen you around the forum much lately, glad to run into you!

i guess i try to read my thoughts with the mind of someone else-to see how they would come off to different people with different mindsets, how they might be interpreted etc. then i can temper my answer so to speak according to the listener.

also i try to find the common ground-where it is that we can meet and try to build a foundation of understanding. there is always some little space like that...

and of course it goes without saying never to attack or tear down anyone's beliefs, even if they are the kind that i wish i could change. beliefs are the core of a person's identity and security, and most people cant bear to see them threatened. so better to try and open a little space where new beliefs can form and grow which might serve them better-plant some seeds. meanwhile keeping my own beliefs fluid enough and being on the lookout for any cracks in their foundation where i might challenge them as well-this is easier to notice after listening to other people.

so i guess besides wanting to get my ideas across, it is also a constant monitoring of those ideas to be sure they are sincere.

i am sure there is more to it than that, but that is what came to mind first.

@Holiday20310401,

I think analogies and little stories can be crucial. Even if they don't hold up to examination, they often get the idea across much more effectively than pure reasoning.

@Holiday20310401,

Aristotle, in his preliminary remarks about the study of Ethics, makes the following observation:

"Our discussion will be adequate if it has as much clearness as the subject-matter admits of, for precision is not to be sought for alike in all discussions, any more than in all the products of the crafts.*** We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premisses to indicate the truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true and with premisses of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit, therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a rhetorician scientific proofs."

One could further observe that philosophical tradition shows a wide variety of ways of giving an account that seem to depend on the subject at hand and the style of the writer.
Plato employs dialogues and at times myths and "likely stories" side by side with very rigourous examinations of definitions. Descartes adopts a conversational tone; Spinoza a geometrical method; Wittgenstein a series of questions and notes; Kant a very dry but precise style.

A wide reading of the tradition AND of great literature can provide---if one but attends to it--- many different models of exposition; for the great philosophers spent as much time and care in expressing their conclusions as they did in reaching them.

@jgweed,

I find it hard to understand myself sometimes so what hope do i have of communicating myself to you?

Seriously i indent like a poet because i have done away with the confusion of superfluous language,
this is to my detriment sometimes,
but at least even if the idea is without merit or cloudy i have made something beautiful.
I also like to think that knowledge is more than facts, it is the form in which they arrive.
It is a broader wisdom to be able to solve as well to understand.

I think the way i do it if you are not rigorously trained to only view one way can actually be simpler.
I hope.

But in the case of poetry also a simple question can convey more than one idea and paint a picture that has many aspects.

@sometime sun,

I often start with a broad stroke generalizations to establish a statistical pattern of sorts (majority of X is Y), then introduce the exceptions to the generalization that I orginally wanted to write about. People feel comfortable with a stereotype, prototype, or archetype. Its the way our brain processes linguisitc information. Information no matter how specific is primarily placed into a prototypical schema and only then after categorized as such slides to more or less generalized functions. So to start with the 'proto/stereo/arche-type' often establishes a more universal base from whence to start the journey.

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401;152065 wrote:

There are many times when one has a perspective, and yet it seems practically impossible to get another person to see what you're trying to tell them.

Sometimes though, when you're writing, you're not talking to anyone particular, you're just trying to express a view you have in words, and that alone can be difficult not to mention the fact that in writing one must be clear if others are to understand what you're trying to say - at least in philosophy it tends to be that way.

I just wanted to ask what everyone here does, what methods and tips they might have that have been useful to them in how they communicate their insights and understandings so as to get them across accurately to someone else. From experience have you recognized any patterns of when things are communicated successfully?

[CENTER]:shifty:

While writing I try to picture a person I am writing to. My language I try to keep as simple as possible since I am not a native English speaker I am scared to make mistakes. In the Dutch language I can express myself better.

Keeping things simple does not mean I am simple myself. I wish I was... I notice some people mistake simplicity with ignorance; I think it's hard to keep your writing interesting when it is full of complicated sentences.

Here on the forum I do like the possibilities of color and smilies to draw attention. In writing on paper I am more free to play with letters, numbers, words and their arrangement. Not every-one likes my style, but that's not possible any way.
:Glasses:

[/CENTER]

@Pepijn Sweep,

Pepijn Sweep;152342 wrote:

[CENTER]:shifty:

While writing I try to picture a person I am writing to. My language I try to keep as simple as possible since I am not a native English speaker I am scared to make mistakes. In the Dutch language I can express myself better.

Keeping things simple does not mean I am simple myself. I wish I was... I notice some people mistake simplicity with ignorance; I think it's hard to keep your writing interesting when it is full of complicated sentences.

Here on the forum I do like the possibilities of color and smilies to draw attention. In writing on paper I am more free to play with letters, numbers, words and their arrangement. Not every-one likes my style, but that's not possible any way.
:Glasses:

[/CENTER]

I love your style and flourish, you have always been more aproachable and 'real' than alot of people here because you have something called character, you are more than words on a screen, you are colour and form and humour and usually make me smile broadly.

@sometime sun,

<Sniff> does not feel approachable now <sniff>

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead;152357 wrote:

<Sniff> does not feel approachable now <sniff>

'sokay gosh, you make me laugh out loud, and that aint easy! Laughing

@Holiday20310401,

Holiday20310401;152065 wrote:

There are many times when one has a perspective, and yet it seems practically impossible to get another person to see what you're trying to tell them.

Let me just point out that you should not assume that you are not understood just because you are disagreed with.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;152362 wrote:

Let me just point out that you should not assume that you are not understood just because you are disagreed with.

But what of the assumption you are just never being agreed with? more so when there is no disagreement.

@Holiday20310401,

One finds patters of philosophical exposition that can be applied either in a direct or indirect way. Some of these patters are logical in that they follow, for example, the requirements for a syllogism; others are rhetorical.

If one reads Aquinas's Summa, for example, the pattern (modeled after scholastic oral and formal debates) becomes evident. He will state the position he opposes, and provide the strongest arguments for it; then he will state his own position, and then refute the opposing points one by one. It is not necessary, perhaps not even desirable, to adopt this form for all discussion, but the general structure can be modified to fit your own style and contemporary philosophical idioms.

Many of the classical philosophers (especially during the Roman period), who did not ignore the study of rhetoric, are models for lucid and readable expostulation, beginning with sentence and paragraph structure and extending to overall construction.

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