Quote #6
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.
More from J. L. Austin
- It may justly be urged that, properly speaking, what alone has meaning is a sentence. --Austin, Papers 56.
- Ordinary language blinkers the already feeble imagination. --Austin, Papers 68.
- But surely, speaking carefully, we do not sense 'red' and 'blue' any more than 'resemblance' (or 'qualities' any more than 'relations'): we…
- [I]f we say that I only get at the symptoms of his anger, that carries an important implication. But is this the way we do talk? --Austin, …
- In one sense 'there are' both universals and material objects, in another sense there is no such thing as either: statements about each can…
- But suppose we take the noun 'truth': here is a case where the disagreements between different theorists have largely turned on whether the…
- Why should it not be the whole function of a word to denote many things? --Austin, Papers 38.
- We become obsessed with 'truth' when discussing statements, just as we become obsessed with 'freedom' when discussing conduct...Like freedo…