Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Limits of Language

"The entire sum of existence is the magic of being
needed by just one other person."
-Vi Putnam

...since social relationships are always ambiguous,
since my thought is only a unit, since my thoughts
create rifts as much as they unite, since my words
establish contacts by being spoken and create
isolation by remaining unspoken, since an immense moat
separates the subjective certitude that I have for
myself from the objective reality that I represent to
others, since I never stop finding myself guilty even
though I feel I am innocent....
… We could say that the limits of language are the
limits of the world… that the limits of my language
are the limits of my world. And in that respect,
whatever I say must limit the world, must make it
finite.
"Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen
meiner Welt"
-Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

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