Meanings, value or even existence are up for debate

tez commented on the list meanings-value-or-even-existence-are-up-for-debate

Magnificent. This list, I mean. I'm not suggesting that the concept of "magnificence" is up for debate... Of course, after a close reading of the above, now I'm beginning to question everything.

December 27, 2006

oroboros commented on the list meanings-value-or-even-existence-are-up-for-debate

...Consider the word "love". It has many meanings which we recognize as soon as we consider the difference between romantic love and conjugal love, the difference between the love that parents readily bestow upon their children and the love that children slowly develop for their parents. All these meanings of the word — all these kinds of love — have something in common. All are related aspects of a single, very large idea — the idea of love. But as most people employ the word in ordinary speech, they have only a small part of this idea in mind; and when young people use it they seldom have in mind the same part that older people have. Few who use the word ever have the whole idea in mind, for it takes a lifetime of experience and thought to comprehend it fully...

--excerpt from "What is an Idea" by Mortimer Adler, 1958

December 27, 2006