Words to Ponder #27
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Words to Ponder #27

5 Comments
  • loisholzman
    Posted at 16:37h, 14 July

    It’s a pleasure to find and post Words to Ponder.

  • loisholzman
    Posted at 15:44h, 14 July

    Thanks, Richard, for the insight that this is anti-neurotic! I’d probably say it’s un-neurotic, but no matter. Another question: can we converse with words being material for the creative social activity of making meaning rather than doing knowing?

  • Marian Rich
    Posted at 12:43h, 14 July

    Yes! I recently had a student ask me, “So what good does it do me to know…?” I responded that knowing in of itself is not useful… your activity is what is important. What we DO with what we “know.” I was pleased to be asked the question. I like knowing that knowing is being questioned! And thank you for your Words to Ponder blog posts. I love to ponder Wittgenstein’s words in particular. I agree with Richard… “Wittgenstein was cool.” And so are you, Lois!

  • Lonny Meinecke
    Posted at 02:52h, 14 July

    Thanks Lois! And thanks Richard – nicely said. All words bewitch us when they leave something we need to know unexpressed. It’s almost like we should only use a word once, or risk never knowing what it really means. I once stared at the word “the” during an English test when I was in 4th grade – it seemed to be out of place.

    Prentice Mulford famously said “Thoughts are Things” which is funny, because if they are, what might we use to think about them? Feelings? Words are just thoughts too bewitching to keep inside, so we let them out and all pretend to know what they mean.

  • Richard Patik
    Posted at 02:10h, 14 July

    That’s a great one, Lois. A meaningful, useful anti-neurotic statement with a shelf life that hasn’t expired in 70 or more years.

    It begs the question, Can we come together and converse with something less bewitching than words? Or perhaps, what we need most is an ongoing activity of observing that we use words (both internally and externally and maybe they are both the same thing) without getting so identified with what words seem to mean and seem to represent. The notion of “truth” withers under such a perspective and we are relieved of its onerous and abstract judgment.

    In any case, Wittgenstein was cool.

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