What Does It All Mean By Thomas Nagel: The Meaning Of Words
She loves me, she loves me not
You just got off the phone with your girlfriend of three years and told her that you loved her and you were on the way to the store, she replied with, “ I’m doing homework at the library, ill see you tonight”. A few minutes later, as your driving through a nearby backstreet you pass a house and see your girlfriend walking out with a man that you have never seen before. What are you to think? What really is the meaning of love? It is just a word? Does it really have a meaning? This was one of the chapters (“The Meaning of Words”) that stood out to me in the book What Does It All Mean by Thomas Nagel. So what does this word really mean? To me the word means a lot more than just any other word. It is a very …show more content…
Think about slang and how you and your group of friends comes up with words that means different things, such as the word “dog” referring to your good friend or “baby” referring to your girlfriend. None of those words have anything to do with describing the things that were being labeled. Why would dog mean friend, or baby mean girlfriend? That proves the point exactly, what do words mean and why do people use them. This opens up an entire new world of language interpretation. Some things sound different to different cultures, such as the doorbell, it sounds like ding dong to me, but as I found out from Professor Antis, in Japan it sounds like pin pon. So if your not thinking if words really have meanings by now, try pondering why dogs, doorbells, roosters and many other thigns sound different to many different cultures. Words such as ruff, or meow, or purr have no meaning in other countries such as Japan or China, so in reality those words don’t even exist in their culture. How do you think the original creator of words created words, and why do they actually mean what they do? The only thing that puts words with the “true” definitions are past experiences. When you are a baby you are taught that a bottle is something that you can drink out of, a shirt is worn on our upper bodies, and socks go on our feet, so that is how we are taught the meaning of
You just got off the phone with your girlfriend of three years and told her that you loved her and you were on the way to the store, she replied with, “ I’m doing homework at the library, ill see you tonight”. A few minutes later, as your driving through a nearby backstreet you pass a house and see your girlfriend walking out with a man that you have never seen before. What are you to think? What really is the meaning of love? It is just a word? Does it really have a meaning? This was one of the chapters (“The Meaning of Words”) that stood out to me in the book What Does It All Mean by Thomas Nagel. So what does this word really mean? To me the word means a lot more than just any other word. It is a very …show more content…
Think about slang and how you and your group of friends comes up with words that means different things, such as the word “dog” referring to your good friend or “baby” referring to your girlfriend. None of those words have anything to do with describing the things that were being labeled. Why would dog mean friend, or baby mean girlfriend? That proves the point exactly, what do words mean and why do people use them. This opens up an entire new world of language interpretation. Some things sound different to different cultures, such as the doorbell, it sounds like ding dong to me, but as I found out from Professor Antis, in Japan it sounds like pin pon. So if your not thinking if words really have meanings by now, try pondering why dogs, doorbells, roosters and many other thigns sound different to many different cultures. Words such as ruff, or meow, or purr have no meaning in other countries such as Japan or China, so in reality those words don’t even exist in their culture. How do you think the original creator of words created words, and why do they actually mean what they do? The only thing that puts words with the “true” definitions are past experiences. When you are a baby you are taught that a bottle is something that you can drink out of, a shirt is worn on our upper bodies, and socks go on our feet, so that is how we are taught the meaning of