Knowledge Quotes

"Intentionality is the mark of the mental - our thoughts are always about something."

"Our concepts require the right kind of historical connection to their referents."

"A proper theory of knowledge must account for how minds connect to reality."

"False representations have a special kind of intentional content worth studying."

"Language is a tool that extends our ability to represent and manipulate the world."

"Our thoughts can fail to represent reality, and understanding why matters deeply."

"Mental representations are maps - useful, but never perfect mirrors of reality."

"A thought's content is determined not just by what is happening in the brain."

"Mental states have their content determined partly by what caused them to develop."

"Culture extends human intentionality by creating stable systems of shared representation."

"Our concepts are not fixed essences but fluid tools shaped by interaction."

"Language crystallizes thought but does not create it - thought precedes language."

"The proper study of intentionality is the study of how minds meet the world."

"To understand language, we must understand the purposes for which it is used."

"We must distinguish between what is said and what is implicated."

"Linguistic competence includes knowing how to be appropriately informative."

"Context is not external to meaning; it is constitutive of it."

"The study of language is ultimately the study of human cooperation."

"Context transforms meaning; without context, there is only ambiguity."

"Understanding requires us to abandon the comfort of certainty."

"Our categories are tools, not truths."

"Understanding demands we leave our prejudices at the door."

"Our categories constrain as much as they illuminate."

"Understanding the world requires accepting its fundamental strangeness."

"Our categories organize reality, but don't explain it."

"Understanding requires translation, not just observation."

"What we observe is always theory-laden."

"A proposition is a thought that can be expressed in language."

"The unity of a proposition lies in the unity of its constituent thoughts."

"Every meaningful sentence expresses a complete thought."