ON THE COMMUNICATION OF A PHILOSOPHY
by Frank Gordon USA

In Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 1961, Philosophy is defined as:

l. Literally, the love of wisdom; in actual usage, the science which investigates the facts and principles of reality, and of human nature and conduct; specifically, and now usually, the science which comprises logic, ethics, asthetics, metaphysics, and the theory of knowledge.

2. A body of philosophical principles; especially, the body of principles underlying a given branch of learning, or major discipline, a religious system, a human activity or the like...

Hubbard's Philosophy
Hubbard gave three principles underlying his view of an effective personal philosophy, which he called Scientology. I have added brief comments:

1. Wisdom is meant for anyone who wishes to reach for it, i.e., it must be accessible and in a form that is easily understood.

2. it must be capable of being applied, i.e., there should be a direct way of translating theory into practice.

3. any philosophic knowledge is only valuable if it is true or if it works, i.e., it should be easily testable.

Using Logic 8 (1) let's compare Hubbard's communication of his philosophy with that of some others.

Immanuel Kant's Philosophy
I once decided to read Immanuel Kant, and chose his "Critique of Practical Reason" as probably a bit easier to grasp than his "Critique of Pure Reason."

I obtained an English translation and began. After reading two pages, I had a very strange feeling. I felt like I had just read two blank pages. It wasn't as if I had looked at two blank pages, but as if I had READ them. Total blankness.

Epistemology
Epistemology (2) would seem to be comparable with Scientology, so I looked it up in an encyclopedia. Here is a sample:

"Epistemology is the philosophical examination of human knowledge. One of the central problems that faces an epistemologist, a philosophy engaged in the examination of knowledge, is how to refute the epistemological skeptic. Such a skeptic should be clearly distinguished from an ontological skeptic..."

Would you care to continue? I decided not to.

An Appreciation
So, among other things, Hubbard should certainly be given high marks for his clear and straightforward declaratory sentence style. For example: "Knowledge is not data. Knowledge is certainty."

Right or wrong, it is readable, and accessible.

Other Ways of Communicating a Philosophy
Fiction and poetry inevitably communicate underlying philosophies, with varying degrees of clarity. Here is a poetic example of my own:

ABOUT TIME
The pine tree stands
Things are persisting (3)
A bird flies over
Things are changing (4)
 

1  Logic 8. A datum can be evaluated only by a datum of comparable magnitude.

2  Epistemology, the theory or science of the method and grounds of knowledge especially with reference to its limits and validity.

3  Axiom 7. Time is basically a postulate that space and particles will persist.

4  Axiom 8. The apparency of time is the change of position of particles in space.
   Axiom 9. Change is the primary manifestation of time.