display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 6716 | Language is presumably for communication, and names stand for ideas [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: It is a received opinion that language has no other end but the communicating our ideas, and that every significant name stands for an idea. | |
| From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §19) | |
| A reaction: This attitude to language has been widely discredited, partly by the observation that 'idea' is very ambiguous, and partly by the fans of meaning-as-use. Truth conditions seem to be ideas, and so are speaker's intentions. |
| 6718 | I can't really go wrong if I stick to wordless thought [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: So long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can easily be mistaken. | |
| From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §22) | |
| A reaction: I think it was one of the great errors of twentieth century philosophy to say that Berkeley cannot do this, because thought needs language. Personally I think language lags along behind most our thinking, tidying up the mess. I believe in propositions. |
| 8861 | Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: There is hardly a word in the language - be it an adverb, preposition, conjunction, or what have you - that is devoid of metaphorical potential. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: Yablo goes on to claim that metaphor is at the heart of all of our abstract thinking. 'Dead metaphors' (like the "mouth" of a river) sink totally into literal language. I think Yablo is on the right lines. |