Conversation

Wittgenstein said ( Philosophical Investigations (3rd Edition) , 363), “We are so much accustomed to communication through speaking, in conversation, that it looks to us as if the whole point of communication lay in this: someone else grasps the sense of my words—which is something mental: he as it were takes it into his own mind. If he then does something further with it as well, that is no part of the immediate purpose of language.”

That is, our naive view is that language exists to transfer ideas from my head to yours. Wittgenstein points to something richer: Language exists so that you can take what I give you and run with it, extend it, glorify it. Language exists to move from glory to glory.

Dear Reader,

Can I be direct with you?

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