167 definitions
The book's index
Philosophical Grammar
114 concepts · 167 definitions
- algorithm1
- arithmetic2
- artificial intelligence1
- aspect1
- attitude1
- axiom1
- axiom of infinity1
- blueprint1
- calculus1
- certainty1
- chart1
- circumstantial evidence1
- common sense1
- confusion1
- conjecture1
- consistency proof1
- contradiction1
- correlation1
- decimal system1
- definition1
- description1
- double negation1
- doubt1
- drill1
- earth1
- elegance1
- enigma1
- exactitude1
- excluded middle1
- existence1
- existential quantifier1
- expectation2
- fairy tale1
- familiarity3
- formalism1
- foundation1
- fuzzy concept1
- generality2
- generalization1
- geometry1
- gesture1
- grammar7
- head1
- heap1
- hidden1
- hidden contradiction1
- hiddenness1
- indeterminacy1
- infinite1
- infinity1
- interjection1
- interpretation2
- intuition1
- justification2
- knowing1
- knowledge1
Language (n.) must speak for itself; what is spoken can be explained only in language, so language cannot be explained.
Language (n.) is itself the vehicle of thought; no meanings run through the mind beside the words.
Language (n.) is a toolbox holding tools ready for future use, as knowing how to use 'yellow' is knowing how the king moves.
Language (n.) is not first given a structure and then fitted on to reality.
Philosophy (n.) must guard against one thing, waffle; any rule that works in practice is in order.
Philosophy (n.) must avoid party lines: disown nothing anyone has said except where he held a particular theory.
Philosophy (n.) checks the mathematicians' account books, not their joys, depressions or instincts.
Philosophy (n.) describes language and explains nothing; what interests is the form of the description, not its truth.
Grammar (n.) is recorded only after a language has long been spoken, as primitive games are played uncodified.
Grammar (n.) is for us a pure calculus and not a calculus applied to reality.
Grammar (n.) is portrayed unseeingly, like Klecksel the little painter drawing two eyes in a profile because people have two eyes.
Grammar (n.) remains a free-floating calculus: links to reality via ostension only extend it, never support it.
Mathematics (n.) is no more mistaken for natural science than a broom is mistaken for furniture while it cleans it.
Mathematics (n.) is no more about signs on paper than chess is about wooden pieces.
Mathematics (n.) is dressed up in false interpretations.
Mathematics (n.) called a game raises what is taken away by saying it and awarded by denying it: a game in contrast to what?
Meaning (n.) is falsely pictured as a full box, contents packed ready to investigate.
Meaning (n.) known only from another's signs is no worse off than his own, for he too has nothing but the signs.
Meaning (n.) is what the explanation of meaning explains, as a gram is explained by what a cubic centimetre of water weighs.
Meaning (n.) may be use, or the way use meshes with our life; and isn't use part of our life?
A Proposition (n.) is supposed by logicians to be too grand for itself, as if it did not quite grasp its own sense.
A Proposition (n.) is not a sharply bounded concept; we may sharpen it as we may fix a pace at 75 cm.
A Proposition (n.) never stands isolated; it is a position in the game of language.
A Proposition (n.) seems set over us like a judge, demanding that reality be compared with it.
Thought (n.) and world seem to harmonize: thinking p does not presuppose p, yet seems to presuppose red's existing.
Thought (n.) is common-or-garden, mysterious only as the number one is, from misread grammar and a missing tangible substance.
Thought (n.) feels like catching reality in a net when we let language guide our view of it.
A Thought (n.) is never wholly present at any moment, which perplexes only because we compare it with a thing we make and own whole.
Proof (n.) and experience taken as two comparable methods of verification is the notion most fatal to philosophical understanding.
A Proof (n.) is part of the grammar of a mathematical proposition and could not be described before it is discovered.
A Proof (n.) cannot be made a proof by its plan; it must speak for itself.
Set theory (n.) stands to lose only the clouds of thought around the bare calculus, not the calculus.
Set theory (n.) is Lichtenberg's knife without a blade that has lost its handle: a borrowed cardinal-number idiom with nothing left.
Set theory (n.) keeps treating laws and lists as the same kind of thing, filling each other's gaps.
Familiarity (n.) lies not in a picture's history but in immediately grasping its rhythm and feeling at home with it.
Familiarity (n.) cannot be thought away: imagine a butterfly exactly as it is but ugly instead of beautiful, and the idea has no clear sense.
Familiarity (n.) is being at home in what I see: a steady glance, no restless questioning of the object.