Carolina QuotesAny utterance is a major assumption of responsibility, and the assumption that one can avoid that responsibility by doing something to language itself is one of the chief considerations of the Phaedrus.
Richard M. Weaver Carolinian
Source
“The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric,” p. 6.
- work
- The Ethics of Rhetoric (1953)
- year
- 1953
- locator
- p. 6
Cite this record
“Any utterance is a major assumption of responsibility, and t…” Richard M. Weaver. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-E07D3916EF. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/e07d3916ef
More from Richard M. Weaver
It may be true that only those minds which are habituated to think logically can safely trust their intuitive conclusions, on the theory that the subconscious level will do its kind of work as faithfully as the conscious does its kind.
[C]ontempt for the degradation of specialization and pedantry. Specialization develops only part of a man; a man partially developed is deformed.
One 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.