To summarize the contentions of this paper then. Firstly, the phrase 'the meaning of a word' is a spurious phrase. Secondly and co...nsequently, a re-examination is needed of phrases like the two which I discuss, 'being a part of the meaning of' and 'having the same meaning.' On these matters, dogmatists require prodding: although history indeed suggests that it may sometimes be better to let sleeping dogmatists lie.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I begin, then, with some remarks about 'the meaning of a word.' I think many persons now see all or part of what I shall say: but ...not all do, and there is a tendency to forget, or to get it slightly wrong. In so far as I am merely flogging the converted, I apologize to them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Semantically, taste is rich and confusing, its etymology as odd and interesting as that of "style." But while style--deriving from... the stylus or pointed rod which Roman scribes used to make marks on wax tablets--suggests activity, taste is more passive.... Etymologically, the word we use derives from the Old French, meaning touch or feel, a sense that is preserved in the current Italian word for a keyboard, tastiera.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
All logical truth and all truths that logic can warrant must turn upon meaning in the sense of intension. Because logic and the lo...gically certifiable comprise only such facts as are independent of all particular experience and are capable of being known with certainty merely through clear and cogent thinking. The same must hold of any analytic truth: if it is capable of being known by taking thought about it, then it must be independent of meaning in the sense of extension and turn upon meanings only in the sense of intension.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I have often thought that if photography were difficult in the true sense of the term--meaning that the creation of a simple photo...graph would entail as much time and effort as the production of a good watercolor or etching--there would be a vast improvement in total output. The sheer ease with which we can produce a superficial image often leads to creative disaster.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The outline of the city became frantic in its effort to explain something that defied meaning. Power seemed to have outgrown its s...ervitude and to have asserted its freedom. The cylinder had exploded, and thrown great masses of stone and steam against the sky.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Impossible Generalized Man today is the critic who believes in loving those unworthy of love as well as those worthy--yet beli...eves this only insofar as no personal risk is entailed. Meaning he loves no one, worthy or no. This is what makes him impossible.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The concentration camps, by making death itself anonymous (making it impossible to find out whether a prisoner is dead or alive), ...robbed death of its meaning as the end of a fulfilled life. In a sense they took away the individual's own death, proving that henceforth nothing belonged to him and he belonged to no one. His death merely set a seal on the fact that he had never existed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »