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About this quote

What does it mean?
Tracing word meanings to their definitions quickly reveals circular reasoning in language.
In plain terms
Asking what every word means leads to loops fast.
What can you take from it?
Test definitions to find circular logic.

Where it applies

  • education
  • debate
  • writing

Putting it to work

  • trace definitions
  • verify foundational terms

Questions to consider

  • Where do you see circular definitions?
  • What words lack clear meaning?

Another view

Some circularity is unavoidable in language.

More from Alfred Korzybski

  1. We read unconsciously into the world the structure of the language we use. The guessing and ascribing of fanciful, mostly primitive-assumed structure of the wo…

    Permalink to quote #26
  2. ...provided we could define all terms. But this is impossible... We thus see that all linguistic schemes, if analyzed far enough, would depend on undefined ter…

    Permalink to quote #28
  3. Thus, we see that one of the obvious origins of human disagreement lies in the use of noises for words.

    Permalink to quote #25

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  2. ...provided we could define all terms. But this is impossible... We thus see that all linguistic schemes, if analyzed far enough, would depend on undefined ter…

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