Contest winner: A fog of philosophers

. . . all credit to the inimitable V. Alan White for the suggestion.

On Thursday morning at the Pacific APA I announced my choice for a new collective noun for philosophers. As the header says, the winner was a fog of philosophers. (Thanks, by the way, to everyone who attended the session, even those of you with devastating objections to my view.) I settled on 'fog' because where there is one philosopher there is hope for clarity; where there is two there is none. Plus, I do like alliteration.

As readers of this blog will know, there were a lot of really great suggestions for a new collective noun for philosophers. My personal favorites were Saul Smilansky's suggestions, including a Vargas of philosophers. And, I loved obviously excellent choices like 'gruep' and 'group*', among several others. However, I decided to deploy a set of standards that ruled out many worthwhile choices. These standards included (1) no confusing collective nouns (e.g., an argument of philosophers), (2) nothing cutesy, necessarily pun-involving, or insider-y (the last two ruled out many of my favorites), (3) nothing that presumed a particular philosophical tradition, subfield, or time period of philosophy, (4) nothing pre-existing, only because that would ruin the fun (and plus, my sense was that no existing convention had stuck), so I ruled out Lipton's wrangle of philosophers, rightly recommended by Hilary Kornblith, (5) nothing so offensive that it would make someone blush or offend delicate sensitivities. These standards narrowed the scope for me, and fog just seemed like the best choice at the time.

So, I hereby encourage the use of 'fog' as the collective noun for philosophers. However, if you don't like it or find it altogether intolerable, I can remind you that there are several species that admit of multiple collective noun terms. So, feel free to add your own unless you can't. :-)

Comments

[Kevin Timpe]

I think that all of us should aim to use 'a fog of philosophers' in our next published papers to try and help achieve some critical mass for the term.

[Mark Smeltzer]

I vote against Kevin's suggestion.

After all, to the degree that such an effort is successful wouldn't it also erode the veritable ostensive basis for the phrase??

Or perhaps it'll be yet another phrase lost to the whims of the ever hip "usage trumps" neo-linguists....

[V. Alan White]

What can I say? I did become enamored of "vox", which is mildly alliterative (and Bill and Monica did love it so), but I must concede that "fog" does in fact convey much of the serious density of thought condensed by my colleagues on their subjects, as well as the more playful obscurantist connotation of our more dubious accomplishments in that regard (even "pettifog" drips in the back of the mind as one says "fog of philosophers").

At the foggy bottom of my heart Manuel--dewey honor is laden with hazy gratitude on top.

You've made not just my day, but my whole week! Thank you!!

[Joe Campbell]

Congratulations, Alan! It is hard to imagine what kind of influence an honor like this will have on your career! I just hope that you remember us all when you reach the top – the top of the fog, that is!

On a side note, I just returned from the Pacific APA and I can tell you that I was in a fog the whole time!

[Saul Smilansky]

Thanks, Manuel, and congratulations, Alan. It's a fine choice, which also lends itself to modular additions: may I propose, for example, as the name for a philosophy conference - Bog?

The only drawback of Fog as the term for a group of philosophers is that it risks confusion between form and content, as in "Am back from the bog, the libertarians were all in a fog".

But then us free will illusionists support the fog...

[Simon Cabulea May]

I very much like this suggestion. It also nicely captures the suspense and thrill of the philosophical experience.