My guess is that there would be long heated arguments and that none of the philosophers would change his or her personal opinion by reference to the categorical imperative.

The question, then: What real life value is the categorical imperative?

As Erich points out, the ideas bandied about are so vague that thousands of distinct papers can be written about a particular idea without ever approaching a verifiable conclusion about what a given term might actually mean or how it should properly be applied.

Science is a branch of philosophy in which one first defines terms unambiguously before working with them. Every term has a precise logical and/or mathematical relationship to an everyday noun or verb. As in other branches of philosophy, the terms might resemble words in common usage. Like “theory” or “weight”. But in science the meaning of these words is very specific.

Or the term is posited to become specific. If experiments fail to cause a term to converge on a concrete idea, then the term is discarded. “Phlogiston” and “aether” are a couple of losers from previous centuries, whereas “string theory” and “dark matter” are still working on finding a solid definition. Odds are, at least one of these two will be replaced. But each term has in its definition the seeds of its own demise; how it can be eliminated.

But who can begin to try to eliminate “categorical imperative” or “essential essence” from the philosophical vocabulary? Or who can define them in such a way that everyone can agree on what they mean?

Perhaps a primer in semantics should be a prerequisite for other philosophy courses. Better yet, teach semantics in high school. I’ve had many an argument with people who could not differentiate a word from an idea, an image from an object, or a map from a territory. This is the block that makes algebra word problems hard for people.

But semantics is another branch within philosophy. And around we go.

Anyway, as my grandpa used to say, “Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.”