Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Causal Relations' and 'Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
The best way to do ontology is to make sense of our normal talk [Davidson]
     Full Idea: I do not know any better way of showing what there is than looking at the assumptions needed to make sense of our normal talk.
     From: Donald Davidson (Causal Relations [1967], §4)
     A reaction: Davidson was a pupil of Quine. This I take to be the last flowering of twentieth century linguistic philosophy. The ontology we deduce from talk in a children's playground might be very bizarre, but we are unlikely to endorse it. 'Honest, it's true!'
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 3. Hermeneutics
Interpreting a text is representing it as making sense [Morris,M]
     Full Idea: Interpreting a text is a matter of making sense of it. And to make sense of a text is to represent it as making sense.
     From: Michael Morris (Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus [2008], Intro.2)
     A reaction: 'Making sense' is obviously not a very precise or determinate concept. It is probably better to say that the process is 'trying' to make sense of the text, because most texts don't totally make sense.