Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Sayings of Confucius', 'Intro to 'Philosophical Essays'' and 'Reasoning and the Logic of Things'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 9. Indexical Semantics
Indexicals are unusual words, because they stimulate the hearer to look around [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Words like 'this', 'that', 'I', 'you', enable us to convey meanings which words alone are incompetent to express; they stimulate the hearer to look about him.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II)
     A reaction: Peirce was once of the first to notice the interest of indexicals, and this is a very nice comment on them. A word like 'Look!' isn't like the normal flow of verbiage, and may be the key to indexicals.
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
People who control others with fluent language often end up being hated [Kongzi (Confucius)]
     Full Idea: Of what use is eloquence? He who engages in fluency of words to control men often finds himself hated by them.
     From: Kongzi (Confucius) (The Analects (Lunyu) [c.511 BCE], V.5)
     A reaction: I don't recall Socrates making this very good point to any of the sophists (such as Gorgias). The idea that if you battle or connive your way to dominance over others then you are successful is false. Life is a much longer game than that.