As a lexicographer, John's philosophy is to provide a dictionary with contents about entries that people can actually understand without being confused with the use of the another form of the same word to define it. For example, "an alcoholic is someone who drinks alcohol" or "an anthropologist is someone who studies anthropology".

Someone once wrote that philosophy is a system where both the speaker and the listener, to whom he is speaking, do not understand each other.

The early Greeks named their manner of studying the universe "philosophia" which is now understood to be philosophy, meaning "lover of knowledge" or, in a free translation, "the desire to know".