>> The whole point of the discipline is that every position must be argued for and questioned and not just asserted.
That's the problem. Nearly every word is packed with meaning, which must be unraveled and argued for with... more words. The cycle never ends.
On a theoretical level, this is true for every discussion in every discipline. On a practical level, how would you know that this is a special problem in philosophy if you admit that you haven't studied any?
>>That's the problem. Nearly every word is packed with meaning, which must be unraveled and argued for with... more words.
Just for the record. I did say that arguments are required and of course those arguments are composed of words (and symbols) but i never said that those arguments are about the meaning of words.
In other disciplines, this is not the case. The two participants in a discussion generally share the same goals, or at least agree on the measuring stick (e.g. uncovering evidence to prove a hypothesis, making an app load faster, improving a car's fuel efficiency, etc). Progress toward their goals can be measured in straightforward and objective ways. Thus, it's much less common for there to be disagreement about basic terminology.
Of course I could be wrong. Maybe there are many interesting philosophical debates that don't simply devolve into semantics. Perhaps you could humor me by providing examples?
So, what you're saying is that the problem of philosophy is that someone could derail a discussion concerning ethics by simply asserting meta-ethical subjectivism and that would be uninteresting or bad in some other way...
I don't quite understand this objection. Not to mention that this is exactly the opposite of what you would expect to find in a philosophical debate. The whole point of the discipline is that every position must be argued for and questioned and not just asserted. That of course includes subjectivism.