What intrigued me when I first walked into Neil’s living room was the concept of a collaboration- driven ethos , although at the time I had no idea what those words mean

The intended readers (all twelve of them) can de- co de the formal presentation, detect the new idea hidden in lemma 4, ignore the routine and uninteresting calculations of lemmas 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and see what the author is doing and why he do es it. But for the noninitiate, this is a cipher that will never yield its secret.

We have seen how it is originally language which works on the construction of concepts, a labor taken over in later ages by science.

Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects.

In the same way that the sound appears as a sand figure, so the mysterious X of the thing in itself first appears as a nerve stimulus, then as an image, and finally as a sound. Thus the genesis of language does not proceed logically in any case, and all the material within and with which the man of truth, the scientist, and the philosopher later work and build, if not derived from never-never land, is a least not derived from the essence of things.

This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors

we believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things--metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities

This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors

Is language the adequate expression of all realities

In the same way that the sound appears as a sand figure, so the mysterious X of the thing in itself first appears as a nerve stimulus, then as an image, and finally as a sound. Thus the genesis of language does not proceed logically in any case, and all the material within and with which the man of truth, the scientist, and the philosopher later work and build, if not derived from never-never land, is a least not derived from the essence of things.

The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.

dissolve an image into a concept.

but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as "honest" actions.

and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things--metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities

copy

And besides, what about these linguistic conventions themselves? Are they perhaps products of knowledge, that is, of the sense of truth? Are designations congruent with things? I

The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages

There are two universal, general gifts be-stowed by nature upon man, Reason and Speech; dialectic is the theory of the former, grammar and rhetoric of the latte

as infants cannot learn to speak except by learning words and phrases from those who do speak

the rules which are laid down in the art of oratory could not have been observed, and noted, and reduced to system, if they had not first had their birth in the genius of orators

Language is based on reason, antiquity, authority, custom. It is analogy, and sometimes etymology, that affords the chief support to reason. A certain majesty, and, if I may so express myself, religion, graces the antique.

Foreign words, like men, and like many of our institutions, have come to us, I might almost say, from all nations.

uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences

The foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls under five heads. (1) First, the proper use of connecting words, and the arrangement of them in the natural sequence which some of them require. For instance, the connective "men" (e.g. ego men) requires the correlative "de" (e.g. o de). The answering word must be brought in before the first has been forgotten, and not be widely separated from it; nor, except in the few cases where this is appropriate, is another connective to be introduced before the one required. Consider the sentence, "But as soon as he told me (for Cleon had come begging and praying), took them along and set out." In this sentence many connecting words are inserted in front of the one required to complete the sense; and if there is a long interval before "set out," the result is obscurity. One merit, then, of good style lies in the right use of connecting words. (2) The second lies in calling things by their own special names and not by vague general ones. (3) The third is to avoid ambiguities; unless, indeed, you definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have nothing to say but are pretending to mean something.

People do not feel towards strangers as they do towards their own countrymen, and the same thing is true of their feeling for language. It is therefore well to give to everyday speech an unfamiliar air: people like what strikes them, and are struck by what is out of the way.

The power of discourse stands in the same relation to the soul's organization as the pharmacopoeia does to the physiology of bodies.