Faced with the nonsense question 'What is the meaning of a word?' and perhaps dimly recognizing it to be nonsense, we are nevertheless not inclined to give it up. --Austin, Papers 58.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- People persist in asking nonsensical questions about meaning.
- In plain terms
- We keep asking bad questions about word meaning.
- What can you take from it?
- Avoid useless questions about meaning.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why do we ask impossible questions?
- Is curiosity ever unhelpful?
Another view
Sometimes bad questions lead to good answers.
More from J. L. Austin
It may justly be urged that, properly speaking, what alone has meaning is a sentence. --Austin, Papers 56.
Permalink to quote #5 Ordinary language blinkers the already feeble imagination. --Austin, Papers 68.
Permalink to quote #7 But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we sense something of …
Permalink to quote #4
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