A Commonplace Book

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Nature 8Bird 9

 

[A]s Wittgenstein's later work (especially the Philosophical Investigations) shows, no proposition or set of propositions wholly contains their meaning. An understanding of the meaning of a proposition always depends upon other, external, factors. We understand one another ... because we share a common set of assumptions with which to interpret our communications. Lacking such a mutual basis we must seek it out and fail to find it before we can dismiss propositions under such a rubric as 'schizophrenese'.
-- R.J. Bird. "Correspondence" Nature Vol.351 No.2 (May 1991).
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