Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump.
Category Archive: Willard Van Orman Quine
Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.
‘Ouch’ is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels.
Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.
Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption.
We do not learn first what to talk about and then what to say about it.
Language is a social art.
The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples.