When philosophers use a word—"knowledge", "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name"—and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language-game which is its original home?—What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use. You say to me: "You understand this expression, don't you? Well then—I am using it in the sense you are familiar with."— As if the sense were an atmosphere accompanying the word, which it carried with it into every kind of application.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations 116-117
Since English isn't Sound and like 90% of English words simply don't have real definitions, I'm not sure I want to tangle with this guy's work. It's either going to be tenuous logic with an exploration in equivocation, or a baffling/impressive display of linguistics. Which was it?
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: