Carolina QuotesOne of the first major steps in the direction of modern skepticism came through the victory of Occam over Aquinas in a controversy about language. The statement that modi essendi were replaced by modi significandi et intelligendi, or that ontological referents were abandoned in favor of pragmatic significations, describes broadly the change in philosophy which continues to our time. From Occam to Bacon, from Bacon to Hobbes, and from Hobbes to contemporary semanticists, the progression is clear: ideas become psychological figments, words become useful signs.
Richard M. Weaver Carolinian
Source
“The Power of the Word,” p. 36.
- work
- Language is Sermonic (1970)
- year
- 1970
- locator
- p. 36
Cite this record
“One of the first major steps in the direction of modern skep…” Richard M. Weaver. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-B150C34D88. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/b150c34d88
More from Richard M. Weaver
The conservative realizes that many orthodox positions, once abandoned in panic because they were thought to be indefensible, are quite defensible in only one gives a little thought to basic issues. Surely one of these positions is the right of an individual or society to hold a belief which, though unreasoned, is uncontradicted.
The complete man, then, is the “lover” added to the scientist; the rhetorician to the dialectician.
The discipline of poetry may be expected first to teach the evocative power of words, to introduce the student, if we may so put it, to the mighty power of symbolism, and then to show him that there are ways of feeling about things which are not provincial either in space or time.