In our theories we construct higher levels of language. We cannot throw away the concepts of the lower levels even if we wished to, because then we would have no means to link theories to observable facts. Predictions produced by the higher levels are formulated in terms of the lower levels. It is a hierarchical system, where the top cannot exist without the bottom. Recall the table describing four types of langage-dependent activities in our discussion of formalization .
Philosophy is characterized by abstract informal thinking.
The combination of high-level abstract constructs used in philosophy with a low degree of formalization requires great effort by the intuition and makes philosophical language the most difficult type of the four. Philosophy borders with art when it uses artistic images to stimulate the intuition. It borders with theoretical science when it develops conceptual frameworks to be used in construction of formal scientific theories. As for the Pythagoreans, the translation of the statement 'everything is number' is that it is possible to have a numerical model of the Universe and everything in it. When we understand language as a hierarchical model of reality, i.e. a device which produces predictions, and not as a true picture of the world, the claim made by metaphysics is read differently.